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CORfRlGHT DEPOSIT. 



BOOKS BY 

Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. 



THE GREAT SECRET . . . • • ^^.30 

The secrets of Health, Beauty, Happiness 
Friend-making, Common Sense, and Success 
are all explained m this book 

THE PRESENCE OF GOD . . • • -2 5 

Selections from the devotional works of 
Bishop Jeremy Taylor 

LIVING AND LOVING ' *^^ 

Selections from the devotional works of Prof. 
A. Tholuck 

THE GOLDEN ALPHABET 2$ 

Selections from the works of Master John 
Tauler • 

THE KINGDOM WITHIN .... -25 

Selections from "The Imitation of Christ," by 
Thomas ^ Kempis 

THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MANUAL $1.00 

A complete text-book on the history theory, 
principles, and practice of the Christian En- 
aeavor Society, with complete Bibhography. 



PUBLISHED BY 

United Society of Christian Endeavor 

BOSTON AND CHICAGO 




REV, F. E. CLARK, D. D. 



THE 



FRANCIS E. CLARK 
YEAR-BOOK 



A COLLECTION OF LIVING PARAGRAPHS 

FROM ADDRESSES, BOOKS, AND 

MAGAZINE^ ARTICLES 

BY THE FOUNDER 

OF THE 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S 
SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 



SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY 

JOHN R. CLEMENTS 



INTRODUCTION BY FANNY J. CROSBY 
( The Blind Hymn- Writer) 




BOSTON AND CHICAGO 






'- '""r,'sc'7jf-:i«^_j«H>-wa! 



SEP 22 J904 

OL^SS ft XXo. No. 
tPY B • 



* Copyright, 1904 

BY THE 

United Society of Christian Endeavor 



Note.-— For permission to use copyright 
material, hearty thanks are extended to Funk 
and Wagnalls Company, Fleming H. Revell 
Company, and The Christian Endeavor World 



^1 



PREFACE 

It is hoped that the presentation in this form 
of these gems, gathered from the books, mag- 
azines, articles, and convention addresses of 
the honored founder of the Christian En- 
deavor movement, may find a hearty reception 
and a large use. 

Such a book as this is always helpful. Its 
message may be made ours at the opening of 
each day, or it may serve as an aid to our part- 
taking in the Christian Endeavor meeting. As 
a pocket companion it may give us food for 
reflection on many an occasion when the 
moments would drag heavily. 

The preparation of the book has been a 
delight and an inspiration. It is sent on its 
way with the prayer that these utterances of a 
beloved leader may be given a new life and a 
larger usefulness in this form. 

The proceeds from the sale of this book, so 
far as the compiler is concerned, shall be used 
for the spread of Christian Endeavor "in 
lands afar." 

John R. Clements. 

''The Den,'' April, igo^. 



a Cbristfan jEn^eavot prater for 
Evers /DorninG 



Our Father in heaven, bless us who unite in 
this prayer to thee, and our Christian En- 
deavor brothers and sisters in every land. 

Enlarge our fellowship; increase our faith- 
fulness; make us more useful in thy church. 
Move our hearts, not only to pray, but to give 
as thou hast prospered us, for this and every 
good cause. Bring young people who know 
thee not to thyself. Bless, we pray thee, the 
Juniors, that the boys and girls may be thine. 

For the Christian Endeavor brotherhood in 
all denominations and in all the world we 
thank thee. Make us worthy of large bless- 
ings, and able to receive them. For the sake 
of Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Saviour. 
Amen. 



I 



INTRODUCTION 

A pleasant task is fulfilled, and lo! a little 
volume rich in its prolific stores comes forth to 
reward our hopes, and realize our anticipations. 
Love is its key-note and love the predom- 
inant principle in the hearts of those who 
were instrumental in its preparation and 
arrangement. 

Every word which it contains is like a jewel 
of inestimable worth, and every page like the 
placid waters of a silver stream bursting from 
a hidden spring in a towering rock, and 
sparkling amid the unclouded splendor of the 
midday sun. In its object this little book is as 
pure and unselfish as the character it represents, 
and from whom originated the bright, pithy, 
and unique sayings, caught as they fell from 
the lips that uttered them, and transmitted 
without the slightest change in their construc- 
tion, to beautify and adorn the pages that will 
yet be hailed with acclamations of joy by every 
Christian Endeavorer. 

This work is intended as an expression of 
our esteem, veneration, and loyal affection for 
one whose entire life has been devoted to the 
cause and kingdom of our Lord and Master, 



6 INTRODUCTION 

and to the welfare of immortal souls, — one 
whom we sometimes designate by the endear- 
ing name of ''Father Clark/' 

No language can portray his tender solici- 
tude for his adopted children. He is not only 
the founder of our Society, but from an earthly 
standpoint he is our watchword and guiding 
star, leading us surely and steadily nearer to 
the great Author of our being, and to the 
source from whence cometh every good and 
perfect gift. It is not wrong to assert that in 
the spirit world there are thousands that owe 
their conversion to his influence and prayers. 
Even now as we write, he is abroad, bearing 
the gospel banner, telling the wondrous story 
of the cross, and proclaiming the message of 
redemption to the souls that are perishing. 

TO OUR BELOVED 

FRIEND AND SPIRITUAL GUIDE 

Rev. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.D. 

the following lines are most cordially and 
sincerely dedicated. 

Faithful teacher, we are learning 
How the Christian race to run; 

Learning by thine own example, 
And the victories thou hast won. 



% 



INTRODUCTION 

There's a crown of stars that waits thee 

In the palace of the King, 
And a song of grace and glory 

That forever thou wilt sing. 
For the King himself will lead thee 

To the banquet of his love, 
And present thee pure and spotless 

At his Father's throne above. 

Fanny J. Crosby. 

Bridgeport y Conn.^ Aprils igo4. 



THE 

FRANCIS E. CLARK YEAR-BOOK 



5anuari2 1 

If you expect Httle and ask for little, you 
will get little. As young people advance, they 
will see new fields to occupy, new heights to 
scale, new victories to win. If they never try 
to do a hard thing, they will soon refuse the 
easiest tasks. If in some respects they fail to 
do what they have hoped, desired, and even 
promised to do, they will come far, far nearer 
to Christ's ideal than if the standards are 
brought back to the natural level of easy and 
comfortable mediocrity. 

— A Message for the New Year. 



5anuari2 2 

The best way to break with the old is to 
begin with the new. I have some little purple 
beeches in my front yard, whose old leaves 
cling to them still, and rustle in every passing 



lo THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

breeze. These old leaves will cling to the trees 
until in the spring the new leaves push them 
off. It is very much so with our habits. We 
must take something into our lives before the 
old can be expelled. There must be a new life 
to drive out the old life. 

— The Old and the New. 



5anuarB 3 

The great trouble with our New Year's res- 
olutions is that they are often big, hazy, and 
far off. This year make them definite, specific, 
relating to things near at hand, things that you 
can at once put into practice; and, whatever 
special form they may take with you, let the 
underlying thought be that of a closer union 
with Christ, and a stronger effort to bring 
others to him. Let this be the new endeavor 
and the new resolution for the happy New 
Year. 

—The New Endeavor for the New Year. 



Januatfi 4 

But, fathers and mothers, may I not beg of 
you in Christ's name to help your children up 
the Hill Difficulty rather than to pull them 
back? Are you willing to take the responsi- 



YBAR'BOOK ii 

bility of indifferent, careless, worldly lives, 
when one ringing call to self-sacrifice might 
bring your children up to the standard of duty, 
obligation, and service which Christ himself 
has planted upon the enemy's ramparts? 

—A Message for the New Year. 



Januars 5 

We are dissatisfied with the past. We are 
disappointed with ourselves. Our lives have 
not been the beautiful, strong, cheery lives we 
dreamed they would be. Last year had 
altogether too many dark days in it, days of 
failure and discouragement and sometimes 
hopelessness. But now a new year is given us; 
a treasury full of unseen priceless jewels is 
ours. 

In this jewel-box are at least three hundred 
and sixty-five gems. Indeed, I do not know 
but it would be nearer the truth to multiply the 
three hundred and sixty-five by twenty-four, 
and that again by sixty. But, whatever the 
number you reckon up, it remains true that the 
jewel-box of the year is a treasury of untold, 
undreamed wealth. 

—The Jewel-Box of the Year. 



12 THB PRANCIS B. CLARK 

Januarg 6 

A beautiful face is only the window of a 
beautiful soul. 

What does it matter if the panes of glass 
are small, and if the sash is a little crooked, if 
through the window you see a warm, cosey 
fireside, a bright evening lamp, happy children 
at their games, a contented father and mother, 
well-read books, a full work-basket, a bouquet 
of fresh flowers, and, in the room beyond, a 
bountiful supper-table laid for the family? 

Is not that a beautiful scene? 

These things are symbols of what any face 
may reveal — happiness, content, intellectual 
capacity, joy in work, appreciation of beauty, 
and a generous spirit. 

A face that reveals these characteristics can- 
not be ugly ; it cannot be repulsive ; it must be 
attractive and winning; it cannot help being 
beautiful in the best sense of the word. 

—How TO BE Beautiful, Though Homely. 



Januars 7 

When we seek first the kingdom of God, 
other things will be added. Only when we love 
the Lord our God with all our might shall we 
love our neighbors as ourselves. 

^Captain Mahan on Personal Religion. 



YEAR-BOOK 13 

3-anuars 8 

The Bible leaves us to write our own com- 
mentaries. It gives us food for thought, but 
does not masticate and digest that food for us. 
It does not furnish what some of the break- 
fast-food companies advertise — "predigested 
aliment.'' _ All Things. 



January 9 

God is ready to bless ; his promises are sure ; 
his power is omnipotent; his love is almighty. 
Are we ready to receive the blessing and to 
carry it to others? That is the only question 

we have to decide. 

— What We May Expect. 



Sanuarg 10 

Family religion is a foundation-stone of all 
our religious life in church and state, and fam- 
ily worship lies near the foundation of all 
family religion. In building the family altar, 
religion builds itself up. 

— Training the Church of the Future. 



January 11 



A prayer-meeting is as natural and necessary 
a means of grace to the young Christian as to 



14 THB FRANCIS E. CLARK 

the older one. It is as appropriate for the boy 
to offer his Httle prayer to God as for his father 
to offer his longer and more comprehensive 
petition. It is as proper for the little Christian 
to repeat the words of Jesus as for larger Chris- 
tians to explain them. 

— Young People's Prayer-Meetings. 



Januarg \2 

Good, strong, voluntary expression of 
religious truth in childhood will, we believe, 
prevent many of the sad wrecks of religious 
faith in manhood. 

—Young People's Prayer-Meetings. 



January 13 

The larger the church, the larger the needs ; 
the greater the community around about to be 
helped, the greater the opportunity for work. 
I do not believe that there is a church in all the 
world so big that earnest, loyal, devoted Chris- 
tian Endeavor societies cannot help it to be a 
greater and grander church than it otherwise 
would be. 

—Concerning the Large-Church Problem. 



Y BAR-BOOK 15 

5anuari2 14 

There is no occasion for framing new 
excuses : the world, the flesh, and the devil are 
all busy at this task. The only Endeavor 
standard is what "Christ would have me do." 
Let us never lower this, but ever cultivate a 
more heroic, courageous, conscientious type of 
Christianity, for this is what the world most 
needs to-day. 

—Some Misapprehensions Corrected. 



January 15 

To find God, though often he seems to hide 
himself, is still the great duty of man in this 
year 1896 after Christ as it was 1896 years be- 
fore Christ. 

Of one thing I am very sure. Impatience, 
fretfulness, despair, will never find him. Sub- 
mission, unselfishness, obedience, trust, even in 
the darkness, will open heaven's door at last. 
Read over Job's story, dear friends, you who 
are tempted to "give it all up." The whole 
book is an answer to the question why 
men suffer. Read its passages of doubt and 
deadly fear and hopelessness, and then read the 
glorious and bright ending of it all ; but remem- 
ber that even in his darkest day Job was able to 
say, "He knoweth the way I take; when he 



i6 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Ah! 
there is the answer to all our questions ; there is 
the justification of all our sufferings. Even 
your past sin, repented of and forgiven, as well 
as your other suffering, will refine the gold and 
purge away the dross. 

—The Old, but Ever New, Search. 

Januarg 16 

AH our invitations, warnings, expostula- 
tions, pleadings, are for the unconverted. Let 
me plead with those who are in the inner circle 
of devoted and joyous service. Now is your 
accepted time. Now is your day of salvation. 
"To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not 
your hearts/' 

— Concerning the Inner Circle. 



Januarg 17 

Here are we, living with God in our very 
midst; but some of us have never seen him, and 
others have caught only a fragmentary, fleet- 
ing glimpse, and then have turned to our dig- 
ging and delving in the dirt again. 

We have but to lift up our spiritual eyes to 
behold him, and we have never done it. We 
hear the noise of his avalanches, the thunder of 



YEAR-BOOK 17 

his providences, and we scarcely turn our 
heads to see whence the providence comes, or 
to read its meaning. 

O the benumbing effect of familiarity and 
use ! The Bible has been in our hands so many 
years that it has become a commonplace book 
to us. We have read its precious promises of 
rest and comfort so many times that these 
jewels have lost their sparkle, and are but com- 
mon pebbles. 

We are so used to the thought of God as 

our refuge and strength, our high rock, our 

impregnable mountain, that in its familiarity 

we forget its reality and its tremendous truth. 

— A Lesson from the Jungfrau. 



There is a thousand times more music in the 
song of the birds and the ripple of the brooks 
than there is in the fiddle of the ballroom. 
There is vastly more health, wealth, and wis- 
dom, for the genuine soul, with the blue sky for 
the curtain and the light and shade on forest 
and river for shifting scenery, than there is in 
the frescoed theatre with painted trees and 
rivers and skies for scenery. I would rather 
walk ten miles into the country for a couple of 
hours in the silent woods than go across the 



i8 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

street to see a score of people skip up and down 
a slippery floor. I should like to have all my 
boys — yes, and girls, too — learn to fish, shoot, 
row, swim, play baseball, and skate in winter 
(I have no great opinion of skating in summer- 
time), so that they may grow strong and brave 
and sound of heart and limb ; but I have no de- 
sire to have them spend much time or money 
to learn the false graces and poor accomplish- 
ments of the dancing-master. Every season 
has its outdoor sports and joys; even city boys 
can have their share of them. Learn to love 
them; and, my word for it, a purer, nobler, 
stronger manhood and womanhood will be 
yo^rs. —Danger Signals. 



5anuati2 19 

The sad, discouraged Christian, who feels 
his shortcomings and the degeneracy of the 
times in which he lives so overwhelmingly as 
to take away his peace and joy, needs to get out 
into God's pure air upon some errand of mercy. 

— Aids to Endeavor. 



5anuarB 20 

"Take down those saints, and coin them into 
shillings," once said Cromwell, of the silver 



YBAR'BOOK 19 

saints in a Catholic cathedral, "and send them 
about their Master's business/' So we need 
to take down our lofty emotions from the 
niches they occupy, and send them on some 
errand of mercy and love. 

—The Secret of a Happy Life. 



Januarg 21 

Certain Scriptures seem to hide their mean- 
ing for a time, and flash out on us almost un- 
awares, as the sunlight, long obscured by a 
cloud, sometimes flashes upon the printed page 
unexpectedly, as we sit reading with our back 
to the window. 

Thus that expression, "The strength of the 
hills is His also,'' never seemed to me to have 
so much, sunlight on it as of late, since I have 
been looking out daily, hourly, almost every 
minute, on Pilatus and Rigi and the Stanser- 
horn, and other Alpine peaks, from our win- 
dows in Lucerne and Berne. 

The strength of the hills — of these deeply 
rooted, broad-based mountains that spread out 
their foot-hills like so many vast outer fortifi- 
tions of a gigantic fortress — is His also. 

The strength of the hills — of these cloud- 
piercing Alpine summits, snow-clad from Jan- 
uary to December, any one of which seems as 



20 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

if, Atlas-like, it could bear the world on its 
mighty shoulders — is His also. 

The strength of the hills — of these vast 
peaks down which the avalanches roll with 
thunderous roar, pouring millions of tons of 
snow and ice into the valleys below — is His 
also. 

The strength of the hills — up many of which 
man has built his pygmy railway, which seems 
scarcely to scratch the surface, or make a fur- 
row on their giant crests — is His also. 

And all this strength may be ours, Christian 
Endeavorers, since we are Christ's and Christ is 
God's. Here we have our warrant for attempt- 
ing even the impossible. Here, also, we find 
the assurance of success in every simplest task. 

"Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for 
strength,'' since the strength of the hills is his, 
and through him ours, there is no duty we 
need shrink from. 

—The Strength of the Hh-ls. 



Look through the Bible from Genesis to 
Revelation, and we find it the record of the 
lives of enthusiastic men; and the Bible is but 
a transcript of all human history in this respect, 
for since the world began little that is great and 



YEAR-BOOK 21 

enduring has ever been intrusted to any other 
than a man of zeal and enthusiasm. 

— Enthusiasm in Christian Service. 



The soul at peace with God is at peace with 
itself. The soul at war with God is at war 
with all mankind. 

—Heart Talks with Young Men. 



5anuari3 24 

It is of no use to strive and struggle and fret 
and fume. It is of no use to turn the evils out- 
of-doors unless you open the door to God. 
God is enough to fill and possess and envelop 
your life. Fill your thoughts, your affections, 
your life, with God; then victory and peace 
w^ill be yours, the enemy will be vanquished, 
and your joy will be full. 

—Heart Talks. 



JanuatB 25 

I have my impediments, and so have you 
yours. I am tempted to give up the struggle, 
and let the impediment win the fight; and so 
are you. When we do this, our disabilities are 



22 THU FRANCIS B. CLARK 

likely to make us morose and suspicious and 
faultfinding, whereas bravely doing our duty, 
leaving our impediments in the rear, honestly 
doing the best we can, we in time make for 
ourselves characters that command the admira- 
tion and respect and love of those around us. 

Or, to put it in another way, by heroic, lov- 
ing service Christ's character is formed within 
us, and his character is always lovable. 

Then let us learn this one supreme lesson of 
Christian Endeavor, to leave our impedi- 
menta behind, and to do the hard things for 
His dear sake. 

— On Doing Hard Things. 



Januars 26 

Are you in the inner circle? It is not full. 
The door is always open. It is your own fault 
if you stay out. The Holy Spirit has chosen 
you for membership. The society and the 
cause of Christ are suffering if you are outside. 
You know little of the true joy of religion if 

you are in the outer circle. 

—The Inner Circle. 



January 27 

Undoubtedly there is very much in our tem- 
perament and nervous organization to account 



I 



YBAR-BOOK 23 

for the expression or non-expression of reli- 
gious rapture. We ought to bear this in mind, 
and not allow ourselves to be too greatly- 
influenced by mere moods. 

There is something vastly better than mere 
rapture, and that is a steady, abiding, peaceful 
faith; and there is something far worse than 
depression of spirits or even melancholy, and 
that is indifference and callousness to Christ's 
claims and Christ's love. 

— Did Christ Ever Laugh ? 



January 28 

The public library as well as the public 
school is a great unifier. It is one of the cru- 
cibles in which the future American nation is 
being melted and fused. It is one of the edu- 
cators which makes the new arrival from the 
steppes of Russia proud of what the Puritans 
suffered, and of what the Revolutionary fathers 
achieved. It is a great Americanizer ; and 
while the public school and the public library, 
and, above all, the church and all its agencies, 
are doing their work, we need not despair for 
the future of the republic, even though all Eu- 
rope casts her ceaseless tides of humanity upon 
our shores. 

—What Do Our Boys and Girls Read? 



24 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 
5anuarB 29 

(President McKinley's Birthday) 

O how much the legacy of this noble Chris- 
tian life and tranquil death may mean to the 
young men of America if they will take it to 
heart ! It seems to me it should open the gate 
of the eternal world to a multitude of the care- 
less and indifferent. It should show the su- 
preme nobility of a Christian life, the absolute 
serenity of the Christian's death. It should, in 
revealing the transitoriness of earthly glory, 
show the eternity of that which is infinitely 
better than glory — character. 

—President McKinley^s Legacy. 



January 30 

The most dangerous place for any man to 
reach is the summit of his ambitions. 

—A Fc«wARD Look. 



Januarg 31 

Those that confess Christ before men will 
not only be confessed by him before their 
Father, but they will constantly grow in ability 
and power to do the Father's will, if in a good 
degree their lives conform to their confessions. 



YBAR'BOOK 2^ 

This seems to be practically a universal law in 
the spiritual world. It is disregarded only at 
terrible risk of spiritual loss and death. 

—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



O, let us always remember that moral dis- 
aster comes not from failure to do right or all 
the good we might, but from unwillingness to 
get up from defeat and try again. 

Our moral fibre begins to disintegrate when 
we are unwilling to make any fresh resolves, to 
have any more decision days. 

— Decision the Key-Note of Endeavor Day. 



yefiruars 2 

(Christian Endeavor Day) 

The Christian Endeavor Society was born February a, /55/ 
in Williston Churchy Portland^ Maine 

No one can realize more fully than I the 
small part I have had in establishing this soci- 
ety, how largely it has been taken by Provi- 
dence out of human hands, how spontaneously 
it has developed; and no one is more grateful 
that this is not a man-made scheme of Chris- 
tian nurture, but a God-sent movement. 

—Training the Church of the Future. 



26 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

Jcbruatg 3 

In the first place, the Christian Endeavor 
movement makes for the fellowship and unity 
of Christians the country over and the world 
around. It is undoubtedly another tie that 
binds our hearts in Christian love. The seal of 
God has been set in a remarkable manner upon 
this feature of the work. Since he has found 
a way of promoting loyalty to one's own 
church and fellowship with those of other 
folds, can we lightly disregard this road to 
essential Christian unity which his finger so 
clearly points out ? 

—Training the Church of the Future. 



J'ebruar^ 4 

Family religion is a foundation-stone of all 
our religious life in church and state, and fam- 
ily worship lies near the foundation of all fam- 
ily religion. In building the family altar reli- 
gion builds itself up. 

—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



Jcbruar^ 5 
The covenant pledge, which has been such 
an important and prominent feature in the his- 
tory of the Christian Endeavor movement, has 



YBAR-BOOK 27 

this for its purpose : to help every one to serve. 
The essence of it is really all in its first clause, 
"Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for 
strength, I promise him that I will strive to 
do whatever he would like to have me do/' 
The rest is but an amplification of this phrase. 
— Training the Church of the Future. 



Jfebruar^ 6 

These efforts, after all, will be but our way, 
our humble, human fashion, of thinking God's 
thoughts after him. His salvation is for alL 
His religion is for the million. He thinks of 
men in six figures as well as by units. He mul- 
tiplies the units and tens until they become a 
million. "No war ever yet was won by mere 
defence," says Captain Mahan, the brilliant au- 
thor and devout Christian, "least of all, a war 
of conquest, which that of Christianity is. Our 
mission prescribed to us by our Founder, who 
is our God, is to conquer the world. Warfare, 
therefore, aggressive warfare in the technical 
sense, has been our mission since the beginning, 
bringing to each generation special problems 
and special conditions." Thank God for this 
opportunity to work and fight for him. "We 
are glad we're in this army, and we'll battle for 
the Lord. _^ Convention Sermon. 



28 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

Jebruatg 7 

One of the ways to keep tip with the times 
and make yourselves felt is to take up one 
branch, and to make yourself a specialist in this 
sense, that you can do one thing, at least, better 
than most other people can do it. The field is 
too large in these days, and competition is too 
sharp, for a man to do many things well. 

—Our Business Boys. 



yebruarg 8 

I am often asked the question, "Don't you 
find this constant round of conventions mo- 
notonous and wearisome?" 

Monotonous! Is a constantly changing 
panorama monotonous? Is the meeting with 
old friends monotonous? Is the formation of 
new friendships wearisome? Is the vision of 
the ever-advancing kingdom of God among 
his young people wearisome? Is the growth 
of Christian Endeavor in faith and beneficence 
and all activities, and in spiritual depth, mo- 
notonous? These are the things that I find 
in a round of State conventions, and I find 
them in an ever-increasing measure. 

To be sure, there is some weariness to the 
flesh ; there are thousands of miles of travel in 



YBAR-BOOK 29 

only a fortnight's trip; there are three times 
as many addresses as there are days in the 
week; and, hardest of all, there is the absence 
from home and the breaking up of family life; 
but as for the conventions themselves, they are 
a constant surprise and joy for their freshness, 
brightness, depth, and power. 

—A Familiar Letter. 



JPebruarB 9 

God is ready to bless. His promises are 
sure; his power is omnipotent; his love is al- 
mighty. Are we ready to receive the blessing 
and carry it to others ? That is the only ques- 
tion we have to decide. 

—Comrades of the Quiet Hour. 



fcbtrxnvQ 10 

Young men, make of yourselves evangelists, 
while you earn your living in some other way. 

—A Familiar Letter. 



JFebruarg It 

But there is something beyond effort, and 
that is life; something beyond doing, and that 



30 THE FRANCIS E. CLARK 

is being. After a time we feel the need of em- 
phasizing that which Hes at the basis of all do- 
ing, and we find that it is being. In fact, the 
more we do, the more surely are we driven 
back to the source of all right action; for we 
find that doing cannot long be kept up with 
genuine earnestness and zeal unless it is the ex- 
pression of genuine life. 

— Concerning Doing and Being. 



(President Lincoln's Birthday) 

Lincoln, gaunt, grave, homely, towering 
Lincoln, the great future hero of the nineteenth 
century, united with the rarest genius of heart 
and soul more uncommon common sense than 
any man of his generation, and for this he will 
be remembered and loved when other presidents 
and rulers are but mere names on the pages of 
dusty history. 

—The Great Secret. 



/ Jfebruari^ 13 

Christianity is a religion of expansive forces. 
You can no more confine the religion of Christ 
to old limits than you can grow an oak in a 
flower-pot. When you confine it, you kill it 



YBAR'BOOK 31 

From the time of the first disciples gathered in 
the upper room, waiting for the Pentecostal 
blessing, it has been 'Agoing and growing." 

—A Convention Sermon. 



ffebruarg 14 

I am almost tempted to reply that a little de- 
votional reading, like a little learning, is a dan- 
gerous thing. Surely the scanty, hasty, hop- 
skip-and-jump, duty method often leads to dis- 
taste for God's Word, and no wonder. But, if 
my friend will take a good, full half-hour 
to-morrow morning and every morning for a 
week, spending at least half of it quietly with 
his heart open to God for light and guidance, 
and the other half reading God's morning mes- 
sage to him, with the help, perhaps, of some 
devout author to illumine the message, I do not 
think he will ever again find the Bible a dry 
and uninteresting book. 

—Heart Talks with Young Men. 



3Fcbruari3 15 

Find out what you are fitted for ; work hard 
at that one thing; and keep an honest heart. 

—Our Business Boys. 



32 THB FRANCIS U. CLARK 

Jfebruar^ 16 

These fundamental and essential principles 
of the Christian Endeavor Society are, I be- 
lieve, four and only four : Confession of Christ, 
service for Christ, fellowship with Christ's 
people, and loyalty to Christ's church. 

—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



JFebruarg 17 

Contrast for a single moment the religion of 
the Bible wnth the religion of Benares; the 
temple of the Holy Ghost with the temple of 
Siva; the stone bull, dirty with the dust and 
grease of ages, with the Christian's conception 
of the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins 
of the world. In fact, the only antidote needed 
to the claims of the lackadaisical toleration of 
all religions as equally uplifting to the race is 
an hour on the Ganges or among the temples 
of Benares. 

—An Hour on the Ganges. 



A great deal more depends upon what we 
deem dull, commonplace, and prosaic than 
upon the occasional lofty mountains of achieve- 
nient. — Fellow Travellers. 



YEAR-BOOK 33 

jfebtuans \9 

One test of a truth is that it is universal. 
Faith is faith in India and Kamchatka. Hope 
is hope in the New World and the Old. Love 
is the greatest of these graces at the equator 
and the poles. So it is in all lesser matters that 
have in them the elements of universal truth. 
Here is the test of the value of an idea, of a 
movement, of an organization. 

—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



yeftruars 20 

I wish that not only every preaching-service, 
but that every church prayer-meeting and 
Christian Endeavor service, might close with 
a quiet moment for silent prayer. 

—German Things Worth Copying. 



yebruarg 2t 

There is sometimes an outcry against the 
pledge, as if a mere instrument were exalted to 
the place of a universal principle. This is not 
the case. * * * * f}^^ pledge is exalted 
as a painter exalts his brush, as a musician his 
violin, as a writer his pen. The brush is not 
the picture ; the violin is not the music ; the pen 



34 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

is not the poem ; but the brush is necessary to 
the picture, the vioHn to the music, the pen to 
the poem, the pledge to the best Christian En- 
deavor society, because it ensures regular and 
frequent confession of Christ. 

—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



ffeftruarg 22 

(Washington's Birthday) 

Most great and strong characters whom 
God signally uses are at their base modest, 
shrinking, sensitive. Perhaps we should find 
that all men who have been most useful were at 
first self-distrustful, could we but know 
their early struggles. Surely it was so with 
Moses, David, Elijah, John the Baptist. The 
early days of many a modern hero — Crom- 
well, Washington, Grant — reveal the same 
characteristic. 

—Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



jfebruatB 23 

Our Bible will not displace or dispute true 
science, but it alone will make stalwart Chris- 
tians. 

— Fellow Travellers. 



YBAR-BOOK 35 

There is room even for experiments and 
failures, since we will always remember that 
the worst failure is to make no endeavor. 

— The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



Jfebruars 25 

Keep your eyes open; be wide awake; con- 
sult those wiser than yourself; and, when you 
see anything that you can do, do it. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



yebruars 26 

Shall we spend all our time digging in the 
scoriae of the burnt-out emotions of the aged 
and the middle-aged, and forget the virgin 
gold-mine of youthful love and enthusiasm, 
which will so richly reward one's toil? 

—Practical Training in Religious Education. 



ffebruare 27 

Would you be a friend and have friends? 
Then practise the presence of God. Seek in 
him the elements of true friendship. Spend 
much time with him. Begin the day and close 



36 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

it alone with him. Seek in the Hkeness and life 
of Christ the elements which made him the 
friend of sinners, and you, too, will have 
learned the art of friend-making. 

—The Great Secret. 



JFebruarg 28 

The Bible leaves us to write our own com- 
mentaries. It gives us food for thought, but 
does not masticate and digest that food for us. 
It does not furnish what some of the break- 
fast-food companies advertise — ''predigested" 
aliment. 

—All Things. 



JFebruatB 29 

(A Leap-Year Extra) 

The flippant, inane, shallow, or fast girl is 
about the poorest specimen of human weed that 
God allows to grow. "A godless woman is an 
abhorrent creature,'' says Timothy Titcomb, 
and he scarcely overstated it. 

Look out, my dear masculine moth, and do 
not get your wings singed, or, worse still, your 
whole life marred and blighted, by an un- 
worthy love-affair and unhappy marriage. 

—Heart Talks with Young Men. 



YBAR-BOOK 37 

/Barcb I 

Put * * duty before feeling and impulse. 
♦ * I should as soon expect to find a mag- 
nificent mansion built on the foaming crest of 
an ocean wave as to see a fine character built 
on impulse or feeling. 

—A Familiar Letter. 



Aarcb 2 

A fool may advise a philosopher; but it is 
only a wise philosopher who will heed his 
advice, even when it is good. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



Aatcb 3 

If we desire a part in the blessing, we must 
also have a part in the praying and the giving. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



Aarcb 4 

The minister or Christian worker who is too 
busy or too pre-occupied to care for the young 
in the Sunday-school and the young people's 
society is too busy to build up his church. 
—Practical Training in Religious Education. 



38 THB FRANCIS E. CLARK 

fliarcb 5 

Nothing that gives us power with men and 
enables us to lead them on to a better life can 
be considered small. 

—The Mossback Correspondence. 



jflBarcb 6 

The grateful soul is not satisfied with speak- 
ing its thanks; it wishes to live its thanks. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



JBarcb 7 

We have something better than the past to 
look to; we have the living present. 

—Chairman's Address. 



iftarcb 8 

The world does not yet know the supreme 
attractiveness and love-compelling power of a 
thoroughly Christlike, thoroughly unselfish, 
llt^« —The Great Secret. 



Aarcb 9 

No pastor can be too ingenious in setting 
his young people at work. 

— Helps for Our Workers. 



YEAR-BOOK 39 

dbarcb 10 

I like to think of the ''Captain of our salva- 
tion'' sometimes as a ship-captain rather than 
as a militar)^ captain. He knows the way, and 
he steers my bark. The captain of our steamer 
knows, ever>^ day at noon, after he has ''taken 
the sun/' just where we are, even wnthin a 
mile; and I have faith to beHeve that he will 
find the little dent on the African coast called 
Durban harbor, after crossing this great and 
wide sea, and will take me in safety across 
the bar. I have the same faith, infinitely in- 
creased, in the great Captain; and, when each 
night comes, I can peacefully go to sleep. He 
is at the helm. He knows the safe harbor at 
the end. He will take me across the bar. 

— Twenty-three Days at Sea^ and 
Some Reflections. 



fliarcb 11 

Go by yourself every morning for this infill- 
ing of the indwelling God. Know him as a 
matter, not of books and second-hand infor- 
mation, but of experience. Then you have 
learned the secret of happiness. As the setting 
sun lights up the heavens, and makes the dark- 
est clouds radiant with supernal glory, so the 
happy heart lights up everything upon w^hich 



40 THE FRANCIS B, CLARK 

the eyes rest. Niagara becomes more glorious, 
the home hearthstone more lovely, the Alps 
more majestic, travel more enchanting, home- 
staying more charming, success more sweet, 
sorrow more salutary, and our very tears be- 
come prisms through which we behold irradi- 
ated the brighter purposes of God. 

—The Great Secret. 



jflBarcb 12 

Tact, after all, is a spiritual quality. It may 
be cultivated. It comes with a prayerful 
desire for souls. _a Familiar Letter. 



ibatcb 13 

If all young men first saw their future life- 
partners in the prayer-meeting, there would be 
less work for the divorce courts. 

—The Mossback Correspondence. 



jfflSarcb 14 

Let us get away from the idea that the Quiet 

Hour is to fit us only for the other world. Let 

us rather think of it as a time to acquire power 

for practical duties and ability for common 

service. 

—A Convention Address. 



YBAR-BOOK 41 

fliarcb 15 

Lack of variety in the prayer-meeting is a 
species of la grippe that is almost fatal. 

—A Familiar Letter. 



Aatcb 16 
God has a right to have a chance at us. 

—A Quiet-Hour Address. 



JBarcb 17 

You do not wear the same kind of collars 

and neckties and coats that your grandfathers 

wore when they were boys, but the same kind 

of hard work and honesty and truthfulness is 

necessary for you if you would succeed as most 

of them succeeded. 

— Our Business Boys. 



Aarcb 18 

As there are vast underground rivers in 
many parts of the world, broader and deeper 
and of more majestic sweep than any Missis- 
sippi or Amazon, streams which men may often 
tap and bring to the surface in ever-flowing 
artesian wells, so there is an undercurrent of 



42 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

happiness in this universe; and, if we connect 
our Hves with it, our joy is perennial; there 
shall be within us then a well of water, spring- 
ing up not only unto everlasting life, but to 
everlasting happiness. This undercurrent of 
happiness, or, rather, — let us give it its nobler 
name, — of blessedness, is God. 

—Cheer Book. 



flbarcb 19 

None of us have, perhaps, Henry Drum- 
mond's wit, learning, or natural charm of man- 
ner; but we may have the chief quality that 
made his character so uplifting an inspiration 
to multitudes. I have said much in these let- 
ters of late about *'the morning watch.'' I ven- 
tured even to recommend in my annual address 
at San Francisco the observance of this daily 
quiet time alone with God. I know of no other 
school than this in which the lesson of Drum- 
mond's life can be learned. 

— A Reminiscence of Professor Drummond. 



/Rarcb 20 

To-morrow morning rise an hour earlier 
than usual. You will be tired and sleepy? No 
doubt. You will wish to turn over for another 



YEAR-BOOK 43 

nap ? I do not doubt it. But no matter ; over- 
come drowsy nature for once, at least; and 
a good hour before breakfast, and before the 
rest of the family are stirring, be dressed and 
ready for a talk with the King. The joy of 
the appointment he is waiting to keep with you 
is worth the extra exertion a thousand times 
over. 

Take your Bible, your own Bible, the one 
with marks and references, and comments in 
your own handwriting, and go, if possible, into 
a room quite by yourself. Open your Bible to 
the fourteenth chapter of John, and read a 
chapter or two from there on, slowly, medita- 
tively, lifting up your heart, and saying fre- 
quently as you read, ''O Lord, open thou my 
eyes that I may understand.'' Perhaps you will 
not get through half a chapter, so full of new 
and wondrous meaning will each verse be as 
you dwell upon it, the new light from heaven 
illumining the page. No matter. All the bet- 
ter, indead. The spirit of Christ is in every 
verse. There is food enough in any verse for 
a morning meal. 

—How Can We Get the Spirit of Christ? 



Aarcb 2t 

God calls you to a definite service. 

—A Familiar Letter. 



44 THB PRANCIS B. CLARK 

ibarcb 22 

The question is not whether card-playing 
and dancing and theatre-going are damning 
sins. It is not whether they shut one out of 
heaven above or the church or Christian 
Endeavor Society below. The question is 
whether they promote or hinder the highest 
type of Christian living ; whether they quicken 
or deaden the spiritual life; whether they open 
the avenues of the soul to God, or close them 
to his entrance. 

I believe there is only one answer to these 
questions. One may, perhaps, live a passable 
religious life, even a Christian life of a certain 
type, while indulging in these things, I admit ; 
but, if the experience of millions proves any- 
thing, it proves that the deeper spiritual life, 
the life that is hid with Christ in God, cannot 
be lived while these amusements pre-occupy 
and engross the soul. 

—Heart Talks with Young Men. 



jflBarcb 23 

We desire to accomplish more in this world, 
to multiply our power to take on more work; 
and very rightly we desire this. How shall we 
do it? Only by obtaining more leisure; and 
this must be leisure from our own nagging, im- 



YBAR'BOOK 45 

portunate selves, the self that steals our time, 
and wears out our powers, and makes young 
men old and strong men sick. 

Take time to obtain this leisure. Spend the 
"morning watch" with God. With open Bible 
and uplifted heart every day "practise the pres- 
ence of God.'' Surrender to him Self, the 
thief. Self, the robber of time and energy and 
life itself; sacrifice the self life, and in its place 
he will give you his life, abundant life; life that 
has leisure for every duty ; life that has abound- 
ing vitality; life that is roomy, large, and 
ample; life that will enable you to take up 
unattempted tasks and new burdens, and to 
carry them easily. Make room in your lives 
for God. Find leisure for him, and he will 
give you leisure from yourself and for a life- 
work larger and fuller than you can at first 
conceive. 

—"The Mind at Leisure from Itself.^' 



Aarcb 24 

What would induce a landsman with a quiet, 
comfortable home to leave it, and endure the 
miseries of seasickness twenty-three days on a 
coolie ship with its filth and its indifferent food, 
its lukewarm water, its cockroaches, its other 
vermin that it is still less proper to mention in 



46 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

polite society, and its unutterable smells? 
What would induce one to do this ? Why, the 
end in view, to be sure, would induce you or 
me or any of us to take the voyage. If it was 
our duty, and we could succeed in planting 
Christian Endeavor a little more firmly in the 
great African continent, there are few of us 
who would not start to-morrow. Many times 
I have thought of South Africa and the work 
there, and then of the home-going afterwards ; 
and almost every hour has been brightened by 
present work and pleasant anticipations. 

Why should we not brighten our long 
earthly journey far more than we do with 
delightful anticipations of the journey's end, 
and of the work and the home that awaits us ? 

— Twenty-three Days at Sea and 
Some Reflections. 



jflBatcb 25 

It is far better to say one thing and stop be- 
fore remarking, "This reminds me,'' than it is 
to be reminded of so many things that at length 
the clock reminds the audience that it is high 
time for you to be reminded of nothing further. 
It is not at all necessary to expound a whole 
body of divinity in every prayer-meeting, or 
even to elucidate exhaustively a difficult pas- 



YEAR-BOOK 47 

sage of Holy Writ, and, as for informing the 
Lord in public prayer so minutely concerning 
all mundane things, it is much better to ask for 
one thing that you really want and then have 
done. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



ilbarcb 26 

There is reason even for experiments and 
failures, since we will always remember that 
the worst failure is to make no endeavor. 

— London Convention Address. 



/IBarcb 27 

The world is not in such crying need of more 
ministers and missionaries as it is of better 
ministers and missionaries. 

—Heart Talks with Young Men. 



jflRarcb 28 

Again and again we need to come back to 
this fundamental thought. The Christian En- 
deavor movement can prosper only as Christ is 
in its members and its members are in Christ. 
—A World-Encircling Movement. 



48 THB FRANCIS E. CLARK 

JBarcb 29 

Giving God a chance at you; that is the 
meaning of the Quiet Hour. Parents, teachers, 
friends, books, newspapers, business, pleasure, 
all these have a chance at us. Should we not 
also give God a chance at us? 

—Convention Speech. 



A^arcb 30 

No one can fairly face the responsibilities of 
life without asking, prayerfully, "Lord, what 
wilt thou have me to do?" 

—Heart Talks with Young Men. 



i!IBarcb 31 

Let us not be satisfied with glittering gener- 
alities. Abstract propositions have seldom 
saved a soul or turned the current of a life 
from self to God. 

—A Million Souls for Christ. 



Sprll I 

To "get mad'* is not only a sign of weak- 
ness, but a sign of defeat as well. The success- 
ful person can afford to keep his temper and 
wait for time to vindicate his course. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



% 



YBAR'BOOK 49 

aprfl 2 

Let us never forget that Christian Endeavor 
means not only ''always at it/' but ''all at it," 
as John Wesley said of Methodism, and the 
more responsibility for service and confession 
a society puts upon every member, the nearer it 
comes to the Christian Endeavor ideal. 

—How One Society Was Killed and 
Another Cured. 



Spril 3 

Easter will be a poor, dull day, a day of out- 
ward observance and ceremony, a day merely 
of flowers that fade and music that dies upon 
the air, unless we know something, each for 
ourselves, of this "lively hope." This hope is for 
every one. None is so poorly equipped intellect- 
ually, no one has so little imagination or educa- 
tion, no one knows so little of theology or meta- 
physics, no one is so driven with work or 
pressed with weariness, that he may not 
know the joy of Easter, that he may not begin 
life once more on this day of the "lively hope," 
having it born within him, and thus being 
bom again to the incorruptible, undefiled, and 
fadeless inheritance. 

— The Day of the Lively Hope, 



50 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

aptil 4 

Ah ! Here is the secret of Easter joy. This 
is the key to our Hvely hope. It is realizing 
the nearness of the unseen One. It is the 
practising of the presence of God. It is the 
endurance of every ill, and every sorrow, and 
every piece of hard routine task-work, as see- 
ing Him who is invisible. 

— The Day of the Lively Hope. 



aprfl 5 

Your victories and mine lie along the same 
lines, not in the carrying out of all our plans 
without a break, but in noble purpose, faithful 
effort, and heroic confidence that God will do 
his part and turn our seeming success or fail- 
ure in life, as the case may be, into real and 
substantial victory. 

—A Sermon from the Camera. 



april 6 

Young men, make money for God. Pledge 
yourselves to turn your best ability to the mak- 
ing of money, not for a selfish and sordid pur- 
pose, but that through your money the world 

may be evangeli;zed. 

—Going and Growing. 



YEAR-BOOK 51 

Bpril 7 

Worldliness, materialism, rationalism, irrev- 
erence toward the Word of God, have wrought 
havoc in some sections. Christian Endeavor 
has a great mission to do in stemming the tide 
of worldHness and irreverence, and in holding 
the young heart of the country sound and faith- 
ful to the great central truths of the religion of 
Jesus Christ. 

—An Anticipated Message. 



aprfl 8 

Worrying, if indulged, gets to be a passion, 

and, just as some persons, with unconscious 

irony, say they "enjoy poor health," so there 

are others who are never quite happy unless 

they are miserable over some real or imaginary 

trouble* 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



apdi 9 

O, the abiding inifluence of a good name! 
"The memory of the just is blessed." The 
good that men do in humble, quiet ways is not 
always "interred with their bones," thank God. 

— A Sacred Grave. 



52 THE FRANCIS E. CLARK 

aprU 10 

Every nail that is driven is better for being 

clinched. 

—The Pastor's Five Minutes. 



Spdl It 

Is it possible that you and I have been on a 
siding all our lives ; and even when we thought 
we were putting on the brakes, and considered 
ourselves so necessary to keep the train from 
going to destruction, was it a mere dream and 
fancy, while in reality the train has gone on 
and left us without our knowing it ? 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



aprfl 12 

The Endeavorers learn to work by working, 
as a carpenter learns to build a house, and an 
artist to paint a picture, and a farmer to till 
the soil. There is no other way in spiritual 
character-building or in spiritual vineyard-till- 
ing than the old way, which has been pursued 
by the gardener and the mechanic from the 
time of Adam and Tubal-Cain. 

— The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



YBAR-BOOK 53 

aprll 13 

Hard usage is the greatest compliment a 
good book can receive. 

—What Do Our Boys and Girls Read? 



april 14 

The father who has a daughter on a mission- 
ary field, the brother who has a sister there, 
does not spare his prayers, or limit his sym- 
pathy, or grudge his gifts, for that distant 
daughter or sister. So, when the Christian 
Endeavorers fully realize that they have 
brothers or sisters in all heathen lands, as well 
as in their own country, their gifts will be 
poured out more freely, and their prayers will 
ascend more fervently than ever before. 

— The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



april 15 

The idea of tithe-giving is as ancient as the 
earliest Scriptures. It runs all through the 
thought of the Old Testament. It was never 
abrogated in the New Testament; but, if there 
were no Scripture warrant for it in any part of 
the Bible, the common sense of practical mod- 
em Christians would commend it as a reason- 



54 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

able and efifective means of obtaining the 
necessary funds for carrying on the struggle 
between the forces of darkness and those of 
light. 

—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



aptfi 16 

We seek to enlarge our fellowship, not 
chiefly that the Endeavor Society may be 
larger, but that the great society of Christ's 
friends may be larger. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



april 17 

I have no quarrel with the ballroom in itself. 
I do not know that it is any more sinful in 
itself to skip lightly about to the sound of music 
than to walk gravely and sedately without any 
music to hurry the feet, but I have an undying 
and unconquerable prejudice against anything 
and everything which will endanger the purity 
of young manhood and womanhood. I have 
an undying hatred of any place or any amuse- 
ment which tends to soil the white lily of maid- 
enly modesty; and this, from all that I know, 
promiscuous dancing does tend to accomplish. 

—Danger Signals. 



I 



YEAR-BOOK 55 

april 18 

A blundering reader destroys the solemnity 
which should always attend the reading of the 
Scriptures. 

— Aids to Endeavor. 

aprfl X9 

Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Yes, 
yes; ten million blood- washed Ethiopians 
answer, "Yes." This is the "miracle of grace.'' 
Salvation consists not in emotion, in halle- 
lujahs, in raptures, in the acceptance of a body 
of doctrine. It is the whitening of the Ethi- 
opian's skin, the changing of the leopard's 
inborn spots. It is the learning to do good of 
those who are accustomed to do evil. 

— Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



april 20 

Why should not our churches have classes 
for the young, membership in which shall be 
conditioned not upon age, but upon vital ex- 
perience in the Christian life? Let the pastor 
call it the "Church-Preparation Class," and let 
all children and young people be eligible to it 
who think they have given their hearts to the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

— Young People's Prayer-Meetings. 



S6 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

aptil 21 

Young man, if you feel that you have not 
the moral stamina to break with the compan- 
ions who are dragging you down, if you feel 
that there is no other way to throw off this 
social chain, every link of which is a fetter for 
your soul, then I beg you to leave everything 
and flee for your life, though it be to CaHfor- 
nia or AustraHa or Alaska or Patagonia, 
though you leave father and mother and home 
and church behind you, flee as you would flee 
from the pestilence. 

— Danger Signals. 



aprfl22 

Keep healthy bodies, steady nerves, and 
sensitive consciences, and never be afraid of 
being too devoted or too religious. The dan- 
ger is all the other way. 

—Goodness Versus Goooiness. 



Bpril 23 

How are you keeping the Quiet Hour? Do 
you make the most of it ? Is it with any of you 
a dreamy fifteen minutes of hazy, ineffective 
meditation ? Do any of you dawdle over your 
Bible or your prayers? Do any of you find 



YEAR-BOOK 57 

your thoughts wandering, or else centred 
upon facts and fancies that are far from the 
real purpose of the Quiet Hour? * * ♦ j 
think we should spend a minute or two at 
least in the realization of the presence of God. 
* * * Then * * * let us take his own 
Word and see what message he has for us this 
very morning — some word of comfort or 
reproof, of promise or of guidance. I think, 
too, we should get at least five minutes for 
reading some stimulating book, at least a page 
or two each morning, that will illumine our 
minds and lead us nearer to Him of whom it 

*^"^' —A Quiet-Hour Sketch. 



Hpifl 24 

Our Father is the owner of all, and each one 
of his children has an undivided share in all 
the Father's property. All is his; and, if we 
are his, all is ours as well. 

—All Things. 



aprfl 25 

Life is a very commonplace and practical 
thing, and it is a good deal better to look at 
things as they are than to imagine that they are 
just as we would like to have them. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



58 THU FRANCIS B. CLARK 
aptfi 26 

We cannot save up our strength ; but, if we 
use it, we shall receive more, and shall often be 
surprised at unexpected aid to meet special 
emergencies. 

— The Renewal of Strength. 



Bprtl 27 

Look backward just long enough to get the 

courage and inspiration that comes from the 

thought of God's blessing upon the past, just 

long enough to see the advancing column and 

hear their steady tread; and then forward to 

new victories. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



aprfl 2S 
A single truth, a single sentence, from Scrip- 
ture, has been enough to work revolutions in 
thought and action, and from age to age the 
Book loses none of its power over human hearts 
and lives. 

—The Power of God's Word. 



aprll 29 

Let us keep our standard high. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



YBAR-BOOK 59 

Bpril 30 

Forget yourself in working for others. Do 
not be satisfied to let the sun set any day in 
the week without having done some act of love 
for Christ's dear sake. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



A weed has been described as a plant out of 
place, and loathsome dirt is frequently good, 
honest soil in the wrong spot ; so whether your 
wealth is filthy lucre or sparkling gold, whether 
it furnishes you with weights or wings, de- 
pends altogether upon what you do with it. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



Guerilla warfare never wins any great tri- 
umphs. To do our work well within the most 
narrow horizon, we need to look onward and 
upward to the stars. To fight with bravest 
heart any little picket-guard skirmish with the 
enemy, we need to be inspired by the bugle- 
call of victory from other divisions of the 
army. 

— A Convention Address. 



6o THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

asat 3 

A creed in the brain alone is about as worth- 
less a piece of lumber as I can conceive. ♦ ♦ 
Set your doctrines to work. 

—The Mossback Correspokdekce. 



Every prayer-meeting is a school of Chris- 
tian service. 

—A Convention Address. 



jflBas 5 

Find some very small hole into which you 
can crawl, and there be an inlooker until you 
can come out and be something more than a 
critical onlooker. 

—The Mossback Correspondence. 



I do not want to have anything better said of 
me when I join the "great majority" than that 
some poor friendless man in this world wanted 
to be near me in heaven, and that heaven would 
be a little brighter for him thus. 

—A Convention Address. 



■^ 



YEAR-BOOK 6i 

fliai2 7 
There is nothing so practical as an ideal. 
— A Convention Address. 



/BaB 8 

A man who assumes the duties of a moral 
hose company is a very useless and uncomfort- 
able individual. He rarely puts out a dan- 
gerous fire, but is always playing on a useful 
or innocent one. I would heartily advise you 
to abandon this business, and see whether you 
cannot kindle a few fires of righteous zeal in 
your neighborhood. At least, don't put out 
your neighbors'. 

— Thi Mossback Cormspondence. 



AaiS 9 

An ounce of experience is worth a pound of 

theory. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



/BaB 10 

The number of our associate membership 
ought to be quadrupled, for this is our evan- 
gelistic agency. 



—An Earnest Appeal. 



62 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

/Rag II 

The reform shibboleth is not always the 
watchword of obedience to God. The cheap- 
est kind of popularity can sometimes be won 
under the banner of reform. 

—Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



JBag 12 

We know of at least one college boy who 
was saved from many a sin by the class prayer- 
meeting to which he early gave his allegiance, 
and in which he became an active worker. 
There he committed himself; there he became 
known as a Christian; and the inconsistency 
and folly of college rowdyism and wild-oat- 
sowing never appeared so apparent as in the 
calm light of the weekly prayer-meeting. 

— Young People's Prayer-Meetings. 



There will always be hardened men, men 
steeped in sin, who have passed beyond the 
period of Christian nurture, and who must be 
won, if they are won at all, by the more 
apparently forceful and startling methods of 
the evangelist. 

— Training the Church of the Future. 



YBAR-BOOK 63 

He who in love and lowliness looks 
into God's face at length is seen to have in 
his own face the love and gentleness and 
grace of God, and the peace which passeth 
understanding. 

—The Great Secret. 



We exalt the pledge as a builder exalts his 

plumb-line and spirit-level. They are not his 

house, but he cannot build his house without 

them. 

—London Convention Address. 



There is a peculiar fragrance about unpaid 
service for the Master, which I believe is most 
grateful to him. O, let us not allow the mer- 
cenary spirit to creep into our most holy things. 
—The Fragrance of Unpaid Service. 



BSz^ 17 

The Lord does not help the lazy and shiftless 
church out of its difficulties, any more than 
the lazy, shiftless grocer. 

— Ways and Means. 



64 THE PRANCIS B. CLARK 

Meekness is compounded of love, patience, 
gentleness, strength, and self-forgetf ulness ; 
and I think the last quality predominates. The 
meek man bows his head, but he bows it only 
to God; he bends his back, but he bends it to 
carry another's load. 

— An Unpopular Virtue. 



Treat the presence of God as you treat any 
other great fact ; only remember that this is the 
most stupendous and momentous of all facts. 
That God is in the world, the Bible, history, 
and the consciousness of millions teach us. 
Why not accept this fact and live in its light? 

—A Familiar Letter. 



JBai2 20 

There is one secret, and only one secret, of 
communion with the infinite One. "The pure 
in heart shall see God." The foul in heart, the 
deceitful, the dishonest, the selfish, the worldly- 
minded, the envious, and malicious cannot see 
God. Their sins like a thick cloud blot him 

out. 

— The Dying Gambler's Lesson. 



YEAR-BOOK 65 

jfflbai^ 21 

Woe unto the young man who will not be 
warned by the experience of others, but who 
ventures to play with the very teeth of 
destruction. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



flbas 22 
He who hath come to our aid in every time 
of need will not, if we are faithful and 
humble, desert us in any extremity. 

—God's Providences. 



flbas 23 
Keep your conscience unwarped and tender, 
and then with prayer take every doubtful 
matter to that tribunal, and you will not go far 
wrong. 

—Ways and Means. 



flBais 24 

A smile is not a smirk. A real smile is not 
an expression put on. The genuine smile must 
come from the genuinely happy heart. * * * 
The lake cannot help reflecting the sky; the 
Christian who is living the life he ought to live 
cannot help showing forth the love of Christ. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



66 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

Aas 25 

I cannot keep your conscience, or you mine. 
I know what is wrong for me; you know what 
is wrong for you. No matter what others do 
or do not do. What you are doubtful about, 
as to whether it is right or wrong, is wrong 
for you until you have decided that it is right. 
Then go ahead and do it, whatever others say, 
if you have no secret qualms, and if you can 
ask and have asked God's blessing upon that 
thing. 

—Ways and Means. 



ifcag 26 

I am daily more and more convinced that 
the difference between success and failure in 
life depends upon a very narrow margin of 
excellence, 

—Ways and Means. 



flbas 27 

The Christlike spirit always looks out 
through beautiful eyes. Christ's smile always 
rests on beautiful lips. The secret of tfeauty, 
would you know it? It is the same as the 
secret of health. Practise the presence of God. 

—The Great Secret. 



YBAR'BOOK 67 

Aas 28 

It is a sad thing for that soul that has not 
fitted itself to take up God's work when God 
calls him to it. 

—A Famiuar Letter. 



Aas 29 

The true patriot is the one who tries to stop 
the disease before the whole body politic is 
sick and sore. 

—Fellow Travellers. 



Aais 30 

(Memorial Day) 

The consecrated patriot will read the history 
of his country, learn its lessons, and will see 
God on every page. 

— Consecrated Patriots. 



Aai2 31 

Let us widen the scope of our prayers until 
they take in our brothers and sisters in all the 
world. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



68 THU FRANCIS B. CLARK 

5une X 

I often think, almost with a shudder, of the 
boy who goes out from his father's house into 
the impurity of the street and the school. He 
has been most carefully reared; every evil 
thing has been kept beyond his reach; he has 
been loved and guarded and prayed for; but 
yet one half-hour with the bad companion, one 
glance at the lewd picture, and the careful 
training of years is forgotten; and the leper, 
entering through Eye-door or Ear-door, has 
taken up his abode in that pure young soul, and 
is only too ready to open the door over and 
over again to his loathsome companions, 
until at last little is left but corruption and 
death in that heart which left the father's house 
white and unsullied. 

—Danger Signals. 



% 



June 2 

The ability and willingness to express one's 
convictions is almost as vital to the Christian 
life as the possession of convictions. There 
are thousands and tens of thousands of Chris- 
tians in our churches whose whole development 
has been stunted because they have never given 
utterance to that which is struggling within 

them. 

— ^YouNG People's Prayer-Meetings. 



YBAR-BOOK 69 

June 3 

There is a homely old New England word 
spelled g-u-m-p-t-i-o-n, which stands for a cap- 
ital quality greatly needed by every committee 
as well as by every individual. I do not need 
to define it; but, when this quality is accom- 
panied by devotion and zeal and prayer, any of 
these committees that the church needs cannot 
fail to do a noble work for the church. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



3-une 4 

How insignificant is every worker in com- 
parison with the work ! 

— A Familiar Letter. 



June 5 

Character is a plant of slow growth, and he 
who hacks at this tree destroys what years 
cannot replace. 

— Danger Signals. 



June 6 

Good, strong, voluntary inspiration of 
religious truth in childhood will, we believe, 
prevent many of the sad wrecks of religious 

faith in manhood. 

— Aids to Endeavor. 



70 THE PRANCIS B. CLARK 

June 7 

Whatever reaches one heart is apt to reach 
another. Whatever helps one life is pretty 
sure to help another. 

— Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



June 8 

Don't spoil a good housekeeper to make a 
poor poetaster, or waste the energies of a good 
Christian in mediocre sentimentalism. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



June 9 

Do not overwork the story of Gideon and 
his three hundred. It does not teach that God 
prefers to work with the few rather than the 
many. Ten thousand Gideonites are better 
than three hundred; only see that they are 

Gideonites. 

—A Convention Address. 



June 10 

Because it is so much easier to bend the twig 
than the full-grown tree, this does not prove 
that it is not necessary to bend the twig. 

— Training the Church of the Future. 



YEAR-BOOK 71 

June XI 

Let us not call our obstinacy firmness, or our 
muHshness resolution. Any goat can beat us 
in the pastime of butting against a stone wall ; 
and in the feat of standing still because other 
people want us to move forward, any donkey 
or pig can easily surpass us. It isn't worth 
while to compete with the lower animals at 
their own tricks. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



June 12 

"Practising the presence of God." It 
involves going away by one's self. It involves 
a daily quiet hour with God. It involves a 
putting away of all known sin. It involves a 
searching of the heart for the rebellious life- 
guard who would keep some of the apartments 
of the soul closed to the entrance of the King. 

— The Great Secret. 



June 13 

The modest man that yet dares to speak for 

God and do the right has always been God's 

chosen man. 

— Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



72 



THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 



5une 14 

The churches that are satisfied with their 
own culture, or their own ritual or doctrine, 
and do not seek to win others to the standard 
of Christianity, have soon become paralyzed 
or atrophied. 

— A Convention Address. 



5une 15 

Every hand-shake is a good seed; every 

smile is another. There is nothing more 

catching than good nature. * * * 'pj^^ 

seed you sow will show itself one of these days. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



June 16 

A limp Bible in the hands is an excellent 
thing; but it is robbed of something of its 
power when it goes with a limp collar, a greasy 
waistcoat, or a beard of four days' growth. 

— The Great Secret. 



5une 17 

Our society ought to develop character by 

encouraging everywhere and always the heroic 

spirit. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



YBAR'BOOK 73 

5une 18 

Why should we not brighten our long 

earthly journey far more than we do with 

delightful anticipations of the journey's end 

and of the work and the home that awaits us ? 

—Twenty-three Days at Sea. 



June 19 

Put more inside your skull and less outside ; 
invest to-morrow in a new book instead of a 
new necktie. 

—The Mossback Correspondence. 



June 20 

We do not worship our pledge; but we 
simply say that this is a way that God has 
shown us whereby we can satisfy the longings 
of our hearts for better service. 

—A Convention Address. 



June 21 

I never saw a nut of any kind that was not 
enclosed in a shell ; and usually the harder the 
shell, the sweeter the nut. A nut that isn't 
worth cracking isn't worth eating. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



74 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

June 22 

Let us bring our minds back to the one 
plain, indisputable fact which the history of 
every human soul reiterates. There is but one 
being large enough to fill the soul of the puniest 
man. It is God. 

There is but one supreme aim, the attain- 
ment of which means success. It is God. 

There is but one life-purpose worth achiev- 
ing. It is God. 

— The Great Secret. 



5une 23 

If Christian Endeavor is good for you and 
me, it is good for some one else who hasn't 
got it yet. 

— A Convention Address. 



3-une 24r 

How can you expect to raise up an active 
Christian worker without the preparatory 
training-place where Christian work is done? 
It is not enough that the engineer should have 
studied about the locomotive from books; he 
must be actually in the shop where it is made, 
and work it before he is fitted to run it. We 
expect our Christian boys and girls one of these 



YBAR-BOOK 75 

days to be Christian men and women, and we 
expect them to assume the duties of Christian 
men and women. Can they do this if they only 
know about these duties in a theoretic way, and 
not at all by practice and experience ? 

— Young People's Prayer-Meetings. 



June 25 

Of all human disagreeables, the man who 
receives courtesies and favors, and never 
acknowledges them, is one of the most unpleas- 
ant; appreciation of w^elcome and courtesy, of 
bed and board, and of the numberless, nameless 
attentions which a kind host bestows, is the 
best current coin in payment of hospitality. 

— Guests — and Guests. 



June 26 

"One family we dwell in Him, 
One church, above, beneath." 

No one ever gave a broader or truer defini- 
tion of the church than Charles Wesley sung 
in those familiar lines. It would have been 
well if the church had never adopted a nar- 
rower one. The church is the family of God. 

—What the Y. M. C A, Has Done for 
the Church. 



76 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

June 27 

Every one should set before himself a high 
ideal, and then seek to become a powerful 
magnet to attract all others to that ideal. 

—The Great Secret. 



June 28 

Health lies very near the foundation of 
happiness and prosperity and beauty. 

—The Great Secret. 



June 29 

There is always a danger in religious work 
of making an end out of a means, of getting so 
interested in the road that we shall forget 
the goal. 

— ^A Familiar Letter. 



June 30 

We all have to struggle with our advan- 
tages quite as much as with our disadvantages, 
with our gifts quite as much as with our 
defects. 

For instance, the pretty girl must guard 
against the vanity and conceit and love of 
praise which good looks oft^n generate. The 



YEAR-BOOK 77 

muscular young athlete must see to it that his 
health and strength do not make him an 
overbearing bully. 

The nimble-witted man is in danger of being 
supercilious and offensive toward slower-paced 
mortals. 

The fluent minister is in ceaseless danger of 
the "fatal facility of utterance/' lest the gift of 
speech become the gift of gab. 

—Wrestling with Our Advantages. 



No one can walk over those mounds, or see 
those eloquent tablets or monuments, without 
praying, "From fratricidal war, O God, 
forever deliver us." 

—Gettysburg Forty Years After the War. 



This faculty of seeing the best in others 
involves a good deal more than at first appears. 

It implies humility and modesty, for a man 
who thinks of himself more highly than he 
ought to think will be sure to think of others 
less highly than he ought. 

It implies that he is not self-centred or 
selfish, for one who is always thinking how 



78 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

much better he himself could do or say the 
same thing, will not be likely to see the best 
m others. —Lessons from the Living. 



5ull2 3 
The fact that needs to be made very plain is 
that the body comes in time to express the 
character, accurately, exactly, inevitably. The 
beautiful soul must in time come to look out 
through beautiful eyes. The beautiful char- 
acter is sure to express itself, sooner or later, 
in a beautiful smile, in a charming expression, 
that makes the whole face lovely. 

—The Great Secret. 



5ul^ 4 

A man cannot be the best kind of Christian 
without being a patriot. If you never to your- 
self have said, "This is my own, my native 
land,'' especially on the great national anni- 
versaries, you should suspect the genuineness 
of your religion, as well as your love of 
country. 

On the fourth of July let every American 
Endeavorer dedicate himself anew to his coun- 
try as well as to his Lord, to God and home 

and native land. 

— Religion and Patriotism. 



YBAR'BOOK 79 

5uli2 5 

This art of reading is by no means an 
unmixed blessing; indeed, it may be an 
unmixed curse unless we read the right books. 

— The Art of Reading: A Blessing or a Curse? 



There is no other test of the value of a fruit- 
tree than fruit-bearing. It has no other reason 
for existence. No more has a Christian. If a 
fig-tree does not bear figs, it is absolutely 
worthless as a fig-tree. If a Christian bears no 
fruit of a good life and kindly deeds, he is 
worthless as a Christian. "Herein is my 
Father glorified,'' said Christ on another 
occasion, "that ye bear much fruit.'' No 
excuse will avail; no substitute will answer; 
nothing but fruit can justify a Christian's 

existence. 

— Religious Barrenness. 



5ul^ 7 

Two weeks of travel are as good for young 
men and women who keep their eyes open and 
their souls responsive as a term in the 

university. 

— How Conventions Pay. 



8o THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

5uli3 8 

To learn to play when playtime comes is as 
important as to learn to work the other fifty 
weeks out of the fifty-two, and a more impor- 
tant lesson, even, for some Americans to learn. 
— Down the Rhine in a Freight Steamer. 



5ulB 9 

Confess, repent, forsake sin; and the dark- 
ness will flee away, and God's light will flood 

your soul. 

—How to Get Rid of Sin. 



5uli2 10 

Professions are useless unless the life corre- 
sponds. If we live in sin, and still profess to 
be in fellowship with God, we lie; that is all 

there is to it. 

— How to Get Rid of Sin. 



JUll2 11 

If anything can make the angels weep, it 
seems to me that it must be the bloodshed and 
carnage of an awful battle. 

— Endeavorers, War Against War. 



YBAR-BOOK 8i 

5ul)2 12 

Vacation time is the best test of our 
Christian characters. 

—A Familiar Letter. 



5ul^ 13 

The question is not what is popular, but 
what is right. 

— Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



5ul^ 14 

With God in the heart sin flees, as the dark- 
ness disappears before the electric Hght With 
sin cherished in the heart God withdraws and 
darkness reigns. 

—How to Get Rid of Sin. 



Julis 15 

Many a man has been happy in prison. 
Many another has sung praises at the stake. 
Thousands have been serenely placid while a 
cancer was gnawing at their vitals. 

Why? Were they not miserable? O yes, 
their bodies were in misery ; but they were yet 
happy with a joy that close prison walls could 
not crush, nor blazing fagots burn, nor con- 



82 THB PRANCIS B. CLARK 

suming cancer eat away, because the soul is 
not the body, and the soul is the man. Here 
is an argument for immortality. Here is a 
body-blow at materialism — the fact proved by 
tens of millions of the living and the dead that 
a man may be*happy though miserable. 

— How TO BE Happy, Though Miserable. 



No face can be so plain that it may not be 
beautiful if through it show glints of happiness, 
content, intellect, generosity. 

—How TO BE Beautiful, Though Homely. 



5ul^ 17 

A boy of twelve to-day is just as old and 
just as young as a boy of twelve in the former 
days. A young man of twenty to-day is just 
onescore years of age, and is no older or 
younger, dear reader, than you or I were when 
we were twenty years of age. He needs the 
same training, will respond to the same 
appeals ; he will be inspired by the same hero- 
isms, that moved our hearts ten or twenty or 
thirty years ago. 

—The Buoyant Young Life of the Present. 



YBAR-BOOK 83 

5uli5 18 

To practise the presence of God is to grow 
beautiful in face. 

— The Great Secret. 



Why are we banded together ? Why do we 
keep the Quiet Hour? Only that we may 
receive a blessing in our own hearts? Only 
that we may know the joy of communion with 
God ? Yes, for this, and for much more — even 
that we may bring a blessing upon others, that 
we may offer the fervent, effectual prayer that 
availeth much. 

— Comrades of the Quiet Hour. 



5ull2 20 

There is just one person in the world who 
has your work to do, and she is called by your 
name. There is one place that no one of the 
millions of young women of America can fill 
except yourself. You can, to be sure, so 
dwarf and stunt yourselves that you may fill 
no useful place, but it will not be God's fault 
or nature's fault. You have every natural 

aptitude needed. 

— A Young Woman's Rights. 



84 THE FRANCIS E. CLARK 

5ul^ 21 

A young woman too often takes up some 
employment as an expedient to kill time until 
Prince Charming appears, riding over the 
plains to claim his own. Next to having no 
aim is it to have this temporary expedient and 
time-killer for an object in life. Prince 
Charming may come; very likely he will; but 
it will be all the better for him and for her if 
he finds the object of his search honestly and 
patiently doing some one thing for which she 
has fitted herself, rather than nervously starting 
up at every ring of the doorbell, thinking that 
it marks the advent of the prince. 
\ —Looking Out on Life. 



3ull2 22 

Not only is it true that a beautiful act is itself 
beautiful; but, often repeated, it makes beau- 
tiful the character, and eventually the face, of 

the doer. 

— The Great Secret. 



Jull5 23 

The Christian Endeavor constitution is no 
hard chrysalis which forever keeps the butter- 
fly within from trying its wings. 

— A Convention Address. 



YBAR^BOOK 85 

5ulB 24 

O brave, strong, modest, undaunted spirit! 
May we learn thy secret of uncompromising, 
unswerving allegiance to the Lord of hosts. 
May we dare to be Jeremiahs. May we dare to 
stand alone against a hostile world, if need be, 
the Lord our only fortress and high tower. 
— Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



JulB 25 

If your capital in life is only a pleasant 
smile, a soft voice, a bright face, a winning 
manner, — and none to whom I speak have 
less, — use them, every one, and use all you 
have, but use your own. Do not try to acquire 
the smile and voice and manner of some one 
else. If you do, you will simper instead of 
smile ; you will make eyes instead of shooting 
dangerous glances; and you will really repel 
when you intend to attract. 

—A Young Woman's Rights. 



luls 26 

Love, let us remember, is something more 
than a sentiment. Here is where the fatal mis- 
take is most often made in domestic life. The 



86 THU FRANCIS B. CLARK 

sentiment and poetry of love is all very well in 
its place. I would not decry it or undervalue 
it, but I say that it is altogether worthless if it 
cannot stand the test of the wear and tear of 
every day. 

—Looking Out on Life. 



5ulB 27 

"Go to work/' said the famous English 
doctor to his rich, dyspeptic patient; "go to 
work. Live on sixpence a day, and earn it.'* 

"Go to work/' says the wise Physician of 
souls to him who would escape this worst of 
all spiritual diseases. The sad, discouraged 
Christian, who feels his shortcomings and the 
degeneracy of the times in which he lives so 
overwhelmingly as to take away his peace and 
joy, needs to get out into God's pure air upon 
some errand of mercy. 

—Young People's Prayer-Meetings. 



BVil^ 28 

Whenever instruction is substituted for 
inspiration, whenever the head takes the place 
of the heart, whenever a Bible class, most 
important as these are, takes the place of 
prayer-meetings, loss and dearth follow. Give 



YEAR-BOOK 87 

the Bible class its place, but not the place of 
the prayer-meeting. Let that be sacred to 
communion with God, pleading with God, 
listening to God, and familiar, unconstrained 
intercourse with fellow Christians. 

— Shall the Prayer-Meeting Be Abandoned? 



The influences of a good home can never be 
confined within four walls. 

—Looking Out on Life. 



^\xVq 30 

The bacillus of every national disease that 
ever decimated a people is the same. The 
source of every national disaster can always be 
spelled with three letters, s-i-n. "Your sins 
have withholden good from you.'' 

— Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



It is hard to deceive your fellow men, and 
still harder to deceive the angels. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



88 THB PRANCIS B. CLARK 

auguet t 

After all is said, the spirit of a man is the 
man. He may say this or that ; he may make a 
mistake now and then; he may be gruff, and 
perhaps unsocial; he may wear a shaggy coat 
outside; but, when we can find out his spirit, 
his animating purpose, we have found out the 
man. He may be homely and awkward and 
poor and ill dressed and uncouth ; but beneath 
the dress and the manners and the face there is 
always something else that we need to inquire 
about, and this is that intangible, inexplicable, 
but very real, thing called the spirit of the man. 
—Why I Like Northfield. 



augu6t 2 

Bossism is quite as offensive in social and 
family life as in politics, and even more 
uncomfortable. 

—The Mossback Correspondence. 



aufluat 3 

Fishing is good for a recreation, but it is not 
well for too many to take it up as the serious 
and only business of life. There is much 
poetry surrounding the rippling trout-stream 



YEAR-BOOK 89 

on the summer morning, with the whispering 
woods and ghmpses of blue sky overhead, and 
the romantic vistas of forest before and behind ; 
but I imagine that the poor fellows on the 
Grand Banks who do nothing but fish for a 
living find it dreary and often hopeless and 
unproductive toil. I am very sure that young 
women who have no resources within them- 
selves, no independence of character, and no 
other means of employment except fishing for 
a husband in the whirlpool of society, must 
often be miserable and heartbroken. If they 
make this their sole business in life, too, they 
do not often succeed very well; but, while 
hoping to hook a leviathan, they often catch a 
gudgeon or a very small sprat. 

—A Young Woman's Rights. 



auguet 4 

I have all honor for the worn mother whose 
pale cheek and wrinkled brow tell of loving 
vigils and constant care for loved ones, but I 
have no honor or respect for the aimless, lacka- 
daisical young person whose pale cheek tells 
only of chalk and slate-pencils and chocolate 
creams and late hours. There is nothing 
interesting or pathetic about her. 

— Looking Out on Life. 



90 THB FRANCIS H. CLARK 
au9U0t 5 

Much that goes by the name of success is not 
worthy of the name. Success is not money- 
getting. The rich man may be a pitiful failure. 
The poor man may be a grand success. It is 
possible to buy gold too dear and political 
honor too dear. True success is the attainment 
of a worthy ideal without the least sacrifice of 
honor or manliness. 

—Danger Signals. 



auau6t 6 

Hustle and strenuousness seem to win all the 
prizes of the twentieth century, and it is high 
tim.e that every effort should be made to recover 
what has been called *^the lost art of medita- 
tion," to set up a bulwark, if possible, between 
the young soul and the commercial, material- 
istic flood, which would be likely to overwhelm 
it, to teach a multitude of Christian Endeav- 
orers that the things which are seen are 
temporal and the things which are unseen are 
eternal. 

— The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



Bugust 7 

There is something more to a gentleman 
than a gloved hand and a polished shoe, an 



YBAR-BOOK 91 

immaculate coat and a suave manner. No 
person can be truly polite who is not a lady or 
gentleman at heart, who is not ready at all 
times to do a kind deed for others out of a 
genuine interest in and regard for them. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



augu6t 8 

There is nothing so foreign to a true 
woman's nature as worldliness, godlessness. 
In a man it is unnatural, hardening, and debas- 
ing; in a woman it is atrocious and horrible. 
As much as her finer nature raises her nearer 
the angels, so the deadening and blunting of 
this nature brings her nearer the devils than a 
man often falls. 

—A Young Woman's Wrongs. 



august 9 

If you are not a confessing Christian, a 
working Christian, a loyal Christian, a conse- 
crated Christian, there is something the 
matter with your foundations. You need to 
look to them ; for, when the rains descend, and 
the floods come, and the winds blow, your 
Christian character and life may be swept 
away. But the movements that are built upon 



92 THB PRANCIS B. CLARK 

principles, the societies which are based upon 
these foundations, the individuals that are thus 
rooted and grounded, need have no anxious 
fear. They fall not, for they are founded 
upon a rock. 

— The Importance of Foundations. 



au9U6t 10 

True politeness, after all, is a matter of the 
heart rather than of conventionalities. 
****** 

You cannot make a brass coal-scuttle into a 
silver vase by rubbing the outside with silver- 
polish. 

—The Mossback Correspondence. 



auflU6t IX 

Better never learn your letters than to read 
about unholy love, and seduction, and divorce, 
and the horrible sins that are gilded and 
painted white in these miserable novels. Shun 
all this class of stuff as you shun leprosy. 
Better have the leprous scales on your face, 
where they will only ruin physical beauty and 
comeliness, than have them on the heart, where 
they will ruin the purity of the soul. 

— Looking Out on Life. 



YBAR^BOOK 93 

Bu0U6t 12 
The failure of every society that has failed, 
so far as I know, can be traced directly to a 
lack of the prayer-meeting pledge. 

—Ways and Means. 



au0U6t 13 

There is a duty devolving upon every Chris- 
tian, not only to see that his heart is right, but 
that the windows through which the world 
looks in upon him are clear and transparent. 
— The Mossback Correspondence. 



august 14 

The boy from the country, with the cowhide 
boots and homespun jacket and uncouth man- 
ners, if he has integrity, good habits, and a 
strong will on his side, is far more likely to 
succeed than the city-bred boy who lacks these 
qualities. The dude, with his arms akimbo, 
and ivory-headed cane, even if he plasters his 
hair upon his forehead in the most approved 
style, finds very soon that these graces are not 
the open sesame of business prosperity ; and the 
rougher, sterner, more manly virtues are 
thus often developed at the expense of the 

gentleman. 

— ^A Young Woman's Wrong? 



94 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

2lUdU6t 15 

Decide what you ought to do as a young 
Christian. Do not be laughed or browbeaten 
out of your convictions. Lift up your banner, 
and stand to your colors. 

—A Birthday Message. 



BuQuat 16 

You cannot grow strong without soul-food 
any more than your muscles can be developed 
on a starvation diet. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



august 17 

O young women ! would that some word of 

mine might show you how a whole-hearted 

consecration to Christ glorifies and ennobles 

your treasure of womanhood. It does for the 

jewel of your life what the lapidary does for 

the rough, unsightly stone from the diamond 

mine; it makes it glow with a heavenly light. 

There is nothing so distorted and perverted and 

deformed as a godless womanhood; there is 

nothing so beautiful and precious as a godly 

womanhood. 

— ^A Young Woman's Wrongs. 



YBAR'BOOK 95 

Buduet 18 

There is no other way in which a Christian 
can better show his devotion than by attend- 
ance, even at personal inconvenience, on the 
services of the church. 

—Ways and Means. 



aUQUBt 19 

Don't make a cloak of your modesty and 
diffidence to keep you from doing a duty ; such 
a cloak is apt to prove the shroud of many a 

good deed. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



auguat 20 

A happy day is but the reflection of a happy 
spirit, and the happy spirit is the reflection of 
the Spirit of God shining upon the soul. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



augu6t 21 

Do be cordial in your manner. A cold- 
blooded fish is very well in the sea or in the 
refrigerator, but I should never think of 
shaking hands with it. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



96 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

HugUdt 22 

If your companion, though he be your best 
friend, cause you to stumble; if he leads you 
into bad ways; if he makes you careless and 
thoughtless, and indifferent of the good, and 
complacent of the evil, cast him off, flee from 
him as Joseph fled out of the way of tempta- 
tion, though you leave the very garment by 
which he seeks to hold you in the clutches of 

the tempter. 

—Danger Signals. 



auguet 23 

There is no abiding without meditation and 

communion. 

—"More Fruit/' 



august 24 

The Christian Endeavor Society is not a 
^'sprinter" that can make a hundred-yard dash 
and beat all competitors; it is a steady-going, 
summer-and-winter, day-in-and-day-out soci- 
ety. It was established for constant service, 
not for a spurt, nor for a few extra galvanic 
twitches of life once in a while. The test of 
any society is not what it does once in a great 
while, but what it does fifty-two weeks of 
the year. 

— Ways and Means. 



YBAR'BOOK 97 

auguet 25 

I have about made up my mind to live in the 
present instead of the past, to do what Httle I 
can to make the passing days better instead of 
groaning over the departure of the "good old 



times/* 



— The Mossback Correspondence. 



Bugust 26 

Make stepping-stones of your difficulties and 
obstacles to the largest successes in the 
kingdom of God. 

— A Sick-Bed for a Theme. 



Bugu6t 27 

The world cannot be regenerated without 
the help of brave women as well as of brave 
men. It has been too long thought that cour- 
age was the prerogative of a man, virtue or 
purity of a woman. We shall never reach the 
true plane from which we can all together, 
men and women, with united effort lift up 
humanity, until we realize this truth, that a 
man must be pure as well as brave, and a 
woman must be brave as well as pure. 

— Looking Out on Life. 



98 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

augu6t 28 

You cannot make much of a hero out of a 
hired Hessian. Cowardice is almost always 
the sister of Aimlessness. 

— Looking Out on Life. 



augu6t 29 

It is a delightful thing to be a good singer, 
a God-given talent to be prized and cultivated ; 
it is worth much to be a good conversationalist, 
to have a genial disposition, a cordial manner ; 
but we must allow God to have control of 
them all as ministering spirits to lead us 
upward, and not let the devil use them as his 



henchmen to drag us down. 



— Danger Signals. 



auQuat 30 

I know of no better remedy for wandering 
thoughts than to fix them upon God's word to 
us. After a little we shall hear his voice speak- 
ing to us, even in a more direct and intimate 
relation still; and, while the printed word 
becomes no less precious, we shall listen to his 
immediate interpretation of it, and rejoice 
greatly in the realization of his nearness. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



YBAR-BOOK 99 

au0U0t 31 

Let us never be tempted to ignore or discard 
our foundation principles. Let us never make 
light of our covenant pledge or that for which 
it stands; for it is no mere formula, or pre- 
scription, or form of words. It is the rock 
foundation of confession, service, loyalty, and 
consecration to Christ and the church, without 
which the society could never exist. 

— The Importance of Foundations. 



September I 

Our vacation has done us little good unless 
we have come back from it healthier and 
heartier than we went away. 

— ^Ways and Means. 



September 2 

There should be no drones in the Christian 
Endeavor hive. Every Endeavorer should do 
something definite to advance the cause of 
Jesus Christ. We should all be brave, true, 
consistent, and faithful ; and we should not be 
afraid to attempt great things. 

— A New Zealand Address. 



•LofC. 



loo THE PRANCIS E. CLARK 

September 3 

Every day you stay outside the ranks of 
God's people is in some sense a wasted day. 

— Ways and Means. 



September 4 

The roots of the Christian Endeavor tree 
wherever it grows are confession of Christ, 
service for Christ, fellowship with Christ's 
people, and loyalty to Christ's church. 

— London Convention Address. 



September 5 

The appreciative man sees God in every- 
thing. He understands the blessings in his 
surroundings, and does not overestimate his 
ills. He finds twice the comfort in life that he 
otherwise would. He can almost extract sun- 
shine from cucumbers. He can certainly find 
joy in the snow and in the rain, in the cloud 
and in the sunshine. 

In each springtime and harvest there is 
great, rich, new blessing. In every common- 
place scene, in every ordinary event, there are 
new comfort and grace for the man who can 
see God in them. 

— On Seeing the Unseen. 



YBAR-BOOK loi 

September 6 

It is said that the greatest vices are only the 
greatest virtues perverted, and I suppose it is 
also true that the Httle faihngs which injure 
your usefulness and mine are often but the 
perversion of some otherwise admirable trait 
of character. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



September 7 

Eminent respectability cannot reach the 
heart of a little child, cannot quiet the flutter- 
ing pulse of the dying sinner, cannot bring 
the Magdalen up to its own serene level. It is 
all very admirable when mixed in due and just 
proportions with earnest love to Christ, and 
unflagging devotion to the souls for which 
Christ died; but it is a very poor and barren 
substitute for either. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



September 8 
The Young People's Society of Christian 
Endeavor is simply an organized effort to lead 
the young people to Christ and into his church, 
to establish them firmly in the faith, and to set 
them at work in the Lord's vineyard. 

— Ways and Means. 



102 THB PRANCIS B. CLARK 

September 9 

If all Americans were McKinleys, how the 
rough corners of life would be smoothed off, 
and the sum total of human happiness be 
increased! I believe that his life and death 
will do not a little to exalt the milder virtues 
of gentleness, kindliness, and chivalric courtesy. 
—President McKinley's Legacy. 



September 10 

I must say I do not find myself placed in an 
enviable light in comparison with my dog in 
the way I receive chastisement. 

It has taken me months and years to 
acknowledge that some border-land sins were 
sins at all ; and, when I have been chastised by 
Providence for working too late at night, or 
worrying too much, or exercising too little, or 
for eating what did not agree with me, I have 
not taken my medicine peaceably and humbly, 
but have been rebellious and unreasonable, and 
thought hard of Providence. 

But my dog has been willing at once to kiss 
the hand that struck him. Well, well, I am 
just an "ornery man,'' as the crackers in Flor- 
ida would say. I must learn a lesson from my 
collie. 

•—The Confessions of a Collie's Master. 



YEAR-BOOK 103 

Septembet 11 

He was not always right, but he always 
meant to be right. 

— At Gladstone's Bier. 



September 12 

(Dr. Clark's Birthday) 

How good is a new beginning, a new day, a 
new year, a new birthday, a new term at 
school, a new twelvemonth of work ! 

We can leave the old, imperfect past 
behind us. 

We can turn the old, blotted page, and begin 
a new record on a fresh page. 

We can forget the things that are behind. 
We can press forward. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



Birthdays are worth celebrating. If the 
year has been lived well, each one is a little 
better worth celebrating than the last. 

— Christian Endeavor Day. 



I am sorry for the man who makes no use of 
anniversaries, whether they mark his own 
birthday or the century's. 

— A Forward Look. 



104 ^^^ FRANCIS E. CLARK 

September 13 

I am coming to think more and more of 
the art of appreciation. I beHeve it would do 
more to sweeten and brighten life than almost 
any art we could learn. 

If it is more blessed to give than to receive, 
the blessedness that comes next is that of 
knowing how to receive graciously. 

—Appreciation as a Fine Art. 



September 14 

Find out and enjoy every one's best points, 
and in some sense they will become yours ; for 
the appreciative person comes in a measure 
into possession of every good thing he 
appreciates. 

— ^Appreciation as a Fine Art. 



September 15 

Do not forget to make some allusion to that 
happy hour you spent in prayer and Bible- 
reading last week ; and, if I were you, I would 
write out in black and white the good resolu- 
tions with which I began the new year, and 
then read them over on the thirty-first day of 
next December. 

—The Mossback Correspondence. 



YBAR'BOOK 105 

Septcmbet 16 

If your tongue is a Damascus blade, sharp- 
ened on both edges, use it sparingly and 
cautiously; let your raillery be good-natured; 
laugh with people rather than at them, and 
they will love you all the better for it. 

—The Mossback Correspondence. 



September 17 

Christian Endeavor stands for a definite 
purpose and a direct aim. 

— A Convention Address. 



There is a busyness which is not business. 
There is an activity which is the veriest idle- 
ness, and that is the kind of idleness I most 

fear for you. 

— Looking Out on Life. 



September 18 

There is a Christian womanhood for the 

most lowly and shrinking; and beyond this, if 

you comprehend all that the words imply, 

there is no higher destiny for a seraph or an 

archangel. 

— ^Looking Out on Life. 



io6 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

September 19 

I wonder if any one will read this chapter 
who feels that his own manhood is being 
undermined, that he is one of the serfs, that 
he is in the chain-gang, that his master is King 
Alcohol. 

Let me tell any one who feels in this way of 
another King, a stronger King than King 
Alcohol, a King with more subjects and larger 
revenues and mightier power. I know not how 
you can escape from King Alcohol except by 
transferring your allegiance to this King. 
Your will is weak ; home influences are unavail- 
ing; even a mother's prayers and sobs you 
forget ; your pledge will be broken ; the antidote 
that you take will not quench your thirst. This 
King will be by your side in every trying hour 
of temptation. He will break your shackles. 
He will rescue you from the clutches of the 
enemy. He will never leave you nor forsake 
you. His name is Jesus Christ. 

—Danger Signals. 



September 20 

Our covenant — a definite way of doing 

definite things at a particular time for Jesus' 

sake. 

—A Convention Address. 



YBAR-BOOK 107 

September 21 

No rules can be laid down that are equally 
applicable to all, for the Father has allowed 
different souls to approach him through dif- 
ferent channels. A towering mountain, a 
placid lake, a stretch of peaceful, quiet meadow- 
land, might lead many a soul to God, as the 
sight of the apparently lifeless tree in the 
winter-time led that remarkable monk, Friar 
Lawrence, to a sense of the power and presence 
of God in all things. 

—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



September 22 

If the gas leaks, let us stop the leak instead 
of blowing up the gas-house. If the train is 
late, let us get to our destination just as soon 
as possible, instead of ana;thematizing the rail- 
road and refusing to get aboard when the train 
does come along. If the times are bad, let us 
mend them, instead of groaning over the 
departure of the past and growling over the 
coming of the present, for our lamentations 
will neither bring back yesterday nor delay the 
coming of to-morrow. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



io8 THE FRANCIS E. CLARK 

September 23 

Every prayer-meeting is a school of Chris- 
tian service. 

—A Convention Address. 



In the ideal society every member is respon- 
sible for some definite, particular task. 

— London Convention Address. 



September 24 

It has been proved by careful, scientific 
experiment that a wine-glass of liquor will 
increase the action of the heart so as to cause it 
to do every twenty-four hours from an eighth 
to a quarter more work than is necessary in 
driving the blood throughout the system, thus 
weakening and wearing out the system with 
every heart-beat. 

—Danger Signals. 

September 25 

There is nothing so good for a young man as 
to have a home of his own and a pretty wife 
to pour out his tea on the other side of the 
cosey supper-table if he gets the right girl to 
preside over his tea-table, but not otherwise. 
—The Mossback Correspondence, 



YBAR'BOOK 109 

September 26 

The Society of Christian Endeavor was 
born of a revival, and was the outcome of a 
real, felt necessity, the necessity of training 
and guiding aright the young Christians who 
might otherwise stray away. 

—Ways and Means. 



September 27 

The children and youth must breathe for 
themselves the pure air of religious truth ; they 
must eat for themselves of the Living Bread; 
* * '^ they must exercise themselves fre- 
quently and constantly in the performance of 
every religious duty which is appropriate to 
their years and attainments. Thus only will 
they become "strong in the Lord and in the 
power of his might'' 

—Aids to Endeavor. 



September 28 

Instruction — wise, patient, careful instruc- 
tion — is most important for the growth of the 
young soul in the way of eternal life; but 
constant effort on his own part to make known 
the love of Jesus is no less important. 

—Aids to Endeavor. 



no THB FRANCIS H. CLARK 

September 29 

We think that the contribution-box is passed 
pretty often, and that a large sum must be 
raised for the conversion of the heathen at 
home and abroad in the hundred thousand 
churches of our land ; but for every dollar that 
goes into the missionary society two hundred 
dollars go into the till of the rumseller. 

— Danger Signals. 



September 30 

To put the matter briefly, the duty of the 
prayer-meeting committee is to have a good 
prayer-meeting, and until it has succeeded in 
having this according to the number and ability 
of the society with which it is connected it has 
dismally failed of reaching its highest plane 
of service. 

— The Christian Endeavor Manual, 



October 1 

The vacation season is over. The annual 
rest-days are past days. We shall prove 
whether we have deserved our holiday by the 
way we plunge into our work. 

— Plunge In. 



YBAR'BOOK iii 

©ctobcr 2 

Let us have done with the old heresy that 
there is power in Httleness. The Gideon's band 
story is entirely misapplied where it is made to 
teach that only a select few can be Gideons, or 
that a small army can fight God's battles better 
than a great one when the soldiers of the large 
army are equally devoted and obedient. All 
hail, then, to this ^^sound of a going in the tops 
of the mulberry-trees." 

—The Opening Guns of the Fall Campaign. 



©ctober 3 

Young Christians may make mistakes in 
working for Christ, but they make a greater 
mistake in not working for him. No failure 
in making the attempt is so bad as to fail to 
make it. Anything rather than spiritual death. 
Only let there be vigorous life, and guidance 
can readily be supplied. 

—Training the Church of the Future. 



©ctober 4 

It is worth quite as much to the Christian to 
know how to give as how to speak or pray in 
public. 

— ^Ways and Means. 



112 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

©ctobet 5 

Follow back the history of almost any man 
or woman distinguished for good or evil, and 
you will find, if you could but know the truth, 
that at the door of life stands a mother of like 
nature and similar characteristics, sending the 
child forth with a blessing or a curse for man- 
kind. But it is not simply the careers that fill 
the eye of history, and the names that spring 
to the lips of cheering crowds, whom the 
mothers have blessed or cursed. 

— Looking Out on Life. 



©ctobcr 6 

If you look straight in the speaker's eye, you 
will help him marvellously. If the sympathetic 
lines in your face and the play of the apprecia- 
tive smile about your mouth tell him that you 
are following him, and catch his point, and 
believe in what he says, he will make a better 
address than he otherwise could. 

— Convention Manners. 



©ctober 7 

Let me earnestly appeal to you young people 
in your own lives to hold on to the idea of 
heroic service, to live '^the difficult life.'* You 



YEAR-BOOK 113 

are retrograding and losing ground when you 
find nothing hard to do for Christ, and 
attempt no hard thing for him. If it has 
become easy to you to say your verse in meet- 
ing, then do the difficult thing, and give your 
personal testimony. If personal testimony is 
easy, do the next difficult thing, and throw 
yourself into the work of some committee that 
takes time and strength and energy. The man 
or woman who never does a difficult thing for 
Christ's sake will just as surely become a 
weakling with soft and flaccid spiritual mus- 
cles as the would-be athlete will become "soft" 
who never takes any hard physical exercise. 

The strenuous provisions of the Christian 
Endeavor pledge are not matters of chance; 
they did not happen to be incorporated. They 
are part of God's plan for Christian Endeavor. 
I do not care much for the form of words. 
Change the form of the usually adopted pledge, 
if you must, but keep one idea, the difficult 
idea, the strenuous thought of doing what 
Christ would have us do. 

—The Difficult Life. 



October 8 

The chief office of every church and minister 
of the gospel is to present the constructive, 



114 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

building truths, to lift up the cross and the 
great Sufferer upon it as the only redemption 
of a lost race, to tell of the safe haven, and to 
point out the good roadstead where tempest- 
tossed vessels on life's ocean may ride out the 
storm; but it is also the duty of every church 
and preacher of the gospel to warn the mariner 
of approaching gales. The red flag saves life 
as well as the breakwater and the lighthouse. 

— Danger Signals. 



October 9 

A man recently told me that he had lived all 
his life in London, but had never seen the 
Tower. There are many people in Buffalo who 
have never seen Niagara Falls, and tens of 
thousands in Boston who have never climbed 
Bunker Hill Monument. So there are millions 
of intelligent people in the world who have 
lived all their lives with this towering fact 
staring them in the face from every page of 
history, but have never seen it. There are 
multitudes in whose ears has been sounding as 
with cataract roar this tremendous truth 
spoken by the voice of God himself : "Obey my 
voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be 
my people;" and yet they have never heard it 

— Old Lanteiins for Present Paths. 



YEAR-BOOK 115 

©ctobec 10 

Look back once in a while over the past, but 
do not be continually looking back or your 
head may get turned. 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



©ctober 11 

In this connection we see the efficacy of the 
milder virtues, meekness, gentleness, long- 
suffering, patience. They are great soul- 
growers. The strenuous politician has little 
use for them. The jingo laughs them to scorn. 
But the Saviour of mankind put them all in 
one chapter of blessedness, and left out of his 
beatitudes all the high-sounding martial qual- 
ities which the world is so fond of lauding. 
The one class of virtues grows character; the 
other, reputations; and he always puts the 
emphasis where it belongs. 

—Soul-Growing and Soul-Dwarfing. 



©ctober 12 

There can be no beautiful, symmetrical 
unfolding of the new life without constant 
acknowledgment of Him who is that life. 

— Aids to Endeavor. 



ii6 THB FRANCIS £. CLARK 

©ctobcr 13 

Worldly parents will have worldly children. 
The law of spiritual heredity is more certain 
than that of physical heredity. It is more cer- 
tain that religiously indifferent parents will 
preside over religiously indifferent households 
than that blue-eyed fathers and mothers will 
have a blue-eyed flock of children. 

— Training the Church of the Future. 



©ctober 14 

You are serving your country best when you 
are serving God best. 

—Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



©Ctober 15 

Familiarity with the mere shell in which the 
Spirit has hidden the divine truth is of great 
worth. But the earnest young soul is not long 
content with the words of Scripture; he will 
soon want to know its hidden meaning; he will 
desire to get at the heart of the gospel. And 
so Bible-reading has led to Bible-study, and 
Bible-study often to a search for the deep 
things of God. 

—Training the Church of the Future. 



YEAR-BOOK 117 

October 16 

Occasionally the persistent hostility of the 
pastor, and far more often his indifference, 
kills or discourages a society, and makes it 
well-nigh impossible for it to do its best work. 
Many a society, I regret to say, has thus failed 
to reach its ideal, a failure for which the 
pastor is very largely, if not wholly, respon- 
sible. For such it seems to me the last day 
may have a serious hour of reckoning. A 
society with a sympathetic, earnest, and helpful 
pastor rarely, if ever, as has been said, fails to 
accomplish good results. 

—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



©cto&et 17 

The religion of Christ is as germane to the 
heart of the boy or girl as to the heart of the 
father or mother. Why should not the lad 
speak of Jesus' love in his own way, as well as 
the father in his way ? The ten or twelve-year- 
old boy will not talk at a meeting or anywhere 
else like the sixty-year-old deacon, but he can 
talk in his own way about Christ in the prayer- 
meeting as he talks in his own way about bats 
and balls on the playground, or about his 
lessons at the breakfast-table. 

— Young People's Prayer- Meetings. 



ii8 THE FRANCIS £. CLARK 

October 18 

I thank God that there are so many wise and 
devout mothers in this world of ours, so few, 
comparatively, that are careless and godless 
and prayerless. How few there are who do not 
bring the little hands together at night, and 
teach the little lips to say ''Our Father'' ! The 
brightest spot in the future outlook for Amer- 
ica and the world is right here, that the race of 
pious mothers is not dying out. 

—Looking Out on Lnnt 



©ctober 19 

It is well to be influenced by the experience 
of others, and to adopt and adapt their wise 
and successful plans; for to heed and to prac- 
tise them is often only another way of listening 
to God's voice speaking through them. 

—What Shall We Do? 



October 20 

One test of a truth is that it is universal. 
Faith is faith in India and Kamchatka. Hope 
is hope in the New World and the Old. Char- 
ity is the ''greatest of these" at the equator and 
the pole. So it is in all lesser matters that have 



YEAR-BOOK 119 

in them the elements of universal truth. Here 
is the test of the value of an idea, of a move- 
ment, of an organization. Is it a temporary 
expedient that meets some local temporary 
need, or is it a satisfaction for a universal need ? 
Is it a post to which something may be tied for 
a little, or is it a tree, with deep-running roots 
and wide-arching branches, which grows with 
the years, and whose seed takes root in any 
fertile soil ? Thus can movements be tested. 
—Training the Church of the Future. 



©ctober 21 

A prayerful leader is the one whom the Holy 
Spirit honors and uses. 



-Aids to Endeavor. 



©Ctober 22 

The prayer-meeting is sometimes called the 
thermometer of the church. It is this, but it is 
a good deal more; it registers the spiritual 
warmth of the church, to be sure; but it also 
generates this warmth. You can tell not only 
what the life of the church is, but largely what 
it will be for the future, from the vigor and 
interest of the prayer-meeting. 

— The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



I20 THH FRANCIS B. CLARK 

©ctober 23 

As the baby must kick its feet and wave its 
ineffectual arms if it is well and strong ; as the 
boy and girl must romp and play, and exercise 
their muscles, whether a gymnasium is pro- 
vided for them or not; so there seems to be 
something in the nature of the young Christian 
that demands exercise. He must do some- 
thing for himself. He will be stifled and 
dwarfed if everything is done for him. 

—Training the Church of the Future. 



©ctobet 24 

To confess Christ does not imply the ability 
to make a good speech; it does not require 
training in rhetoric and elocution ; it simply 
means the expression of love, which is as nat- 
ural and appropriate for the young soul as for 
the flower to bloom or the bird to fly. But 
even the bird must have room to fly ; the caged 
canary does not gain strength of wing. The 
plant must have a plot of ground and careful 
nurture before it opens its petals. So we 
believe that special provision should be made 
for every young Christian that he may not 
settle back into the ranks of the dumb and 
lifeless, who have mouths, but speak not. 

— Young People's Prayer-Meetings. 



YEAR-BOOK 121 

October 25 

The influence of nineteen hours in the best 
home on earth can be counteracted by five 
hours at school. The carefully nurtured boy, 
who for a dozen years has been kept from con- 
tamination in the home, may have a foul seed 
planted in his heart by a half-hour's contact 
with the rotten life of an unclean boy to whom 
he looks up as his elder and superior. The 
careful training of years may be undone, in a 
measure, at least, by an evil book or picture, or 
by a persistent sneer at religious things. So 
there is need of buttressing the best home on 
earth with other influences which shall help to 
mould the character for God. 

—Training the Church of the Futxjre. 



©ctobet 26 

In fact, the history of the evangelical church 
for the last hundred years is very largely the 
history of the prayer-meeting. Where this 
meeting has commanded the respect and the 
attention and the devotion of the members, the 
church has flourished; where it has declined 
and enlisted only the languid interest of a small 
fraction of the church-members, the whole life 
of the church has suffered in consequence. 

— The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



122 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

©ctober 27 

To sin is to turn the back, to repent is to 
turn the face, to God. So simple and yet so 
radical is the great truth of salvation. 

—Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



©ctober 28 

A He that is easy to start may be impossible 
to refute. Every man owes it not only to his 
neighbor, but to himself, either to utterly dis- 
regard the scandalous rumor or to follow it up 
and prove its falsity or truth. Do not be 
deceived by the strength and breadth of its 
wing; see if it has l^s and can stand. 

—The Mossback Correspondence. 



©ctobet 29 

As I write these words on the train, the por- 
ter is lighting the Pintsch lights in the lamps 
over my head. There are four burners in each 
lamp ; but he touches the match to only one of 
them, and, when that blazes, the others then 
catch fire from it; and in a second all are alight. 
So it is with you. Light your own torch, and 
others will catch fire from it. 

—What Is a Revival? 



YEAR-BOOK 123 

©cto&et 30 

Are you dazzled by the lives of generals, 
Senators, millionaires, or great men of letters? 
Consider the cross ere looking at the crown. 
It is a grand thing to win the crown. Try for 
it. Try with all the manhood there is in you. 
You are worth little if you do not make the 
trial. Let no word of mine discourage you. 
But try no short cuts. Count the cost, and 
then do valiant battle. Determine to win all 
these good things, but win them legitimately. 

—Danger Signals. 



©ctober 31 

When Henry Wilson, who was vice-presi- 
dent of the United States on the same ticket 
with Gen. Grant, was converted in mature life, 
prominent politician and statesman though he 
was, he went around among his companions 
and friends in Natick, many of them old and 
hardened men, urging them to come to the 
revival meetings, and to go forward for 
prayers; and as a result many came into the 
Kingdom with him. How many will you bring 
with you this winter ? The next few weeks will 
answer this question. 

— These Coming Weeks, What Will 
They Bring? 



124 THB FRANCIS E. CLARK 

movember 1 

The bloom on the peach, once brushed off, 
does not return. Paint it ever so skilfully, you 
cannot restore its bloom. The virgin lily, once 
crumpled and bruised, is never itself again, 
however you press out its v^hite petals. The 
snow, smirched and blackened, is never again 
the symbol of purity that it was when it fell 
from heaven. Therefore I would say to you 
with words burning hot if I could compass 
them, Beware, beware, beware of the first step 
on the road tliat may lead you at last to the 
pillory, to take your place beside the outcast 
woman with the blazing scarlet letter on her 

breast. 

— Looking Out on Life. 



Vlovcmbct 2 

The '^because'' is always followed by the 
^Uerefore." 

— Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



Alas ! alas for the young man who will not 
learn by tlie awful experience of the bleeding 
myriads who have been hacked and slaughtered 
by strong drink or licentiousness ! 

— The Mossback Correspondence. 



YHAR-BOOK 125 

movember 3 

Nothing can ever take the place of home 
training. At the best, other methods can only 
supplement and round out the nurture of the 
home, or can make up in some little measure 
for the defects or lack of home training. The 
mother's knee, the father's kindly care, form 
the very best possible means for the Christian 
nurture of children. 

— Training the Church of the Future. 



flovember 4 

Let us not vote for any candidate unless on 
careful and prayerful thought we believe his 
triumph will be for the welfare of the land. 
Break with the past if need be. Break with 
your party if you must, but never break with 
your conscience. 
■—Concerning the Burning Question of the Day. 



*lo\?ember 5 

We need to get over the impression so widely 
prevalent that the soul of a grown person is a 
little more valuable than the soul of a child, 
and that it is a greater triumph to win such a 
soul for the Kingdom. 

— Training the Church of the Future. 



126 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

flovember 6 

Plunge into life's duties, young man. Don't 

be always preparing for them and never getting 

at them. 

— Plunge In. 



flovember 7 

Search history through, and tell me whether 
you can find a single instance in nation or fam- 
ily where godlessness, debauchery, and diso- 
bedience of the laws of God brought perma- 
nent peace and prosperity. Unhesitatingly I 
dare to challenge the strictest, most careful 
research where the history of nation or family 
can be seen as a whole. 

—Old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



movem&er 8 

The reason why the false or defective faiths 
of Buddha and Mohammed and of the Greek 
and the Latin churches have so tremendous a 
hold on the life of the world to-day is that their 
adherents are never ashamed to declare their 
allegiance to their religion. Five times a day 
the devout Turk will pray with his face 
towards Mecca. The Buddhist will mutter half 
the day, "I believe in Buddha; I believe in 



YBAR-BOOK 127 

Buddha." The humblest Russian peasant will 
bless his black crust before all his fellows as he 
begins his humble meal. The English-speaking 
evangelical Christian, of all men, seems to be 
the most shamefaced concerning his religion, 
and this reluctance to acknowledge one's faith 
accounts in no small measure for the small 
influence which the purest faith in the world 
exercises upon the outside public. 

— ^The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



Hovember 9 

I believe the great danger in these days is not 
of asking people too often to decide for Christ, 
or of asking it in an unwise, perfunctory, or 
unpleasant way, but of not giving the invita- 
tion at all. 

—Drawing the Net. 



tiovcmbct 10 

The minister who is too busy or too pre- 
occupied to care for the young is too busy to 
build up his church. The true servant of God 
iwill find the time and make the opportunity. 
He will adapt himself to this work, however 
few were his gifts in this direction originally. 
He will gain for himself the young heart that 



128 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

he may win the young, so that at the last, 
when his account is demanded, he may say, 
"Here am I, Lord, and the children whom thou 
hast given me." 

—Training the Church of the Future. 



November tl 

Thank God that the gospel is not losing its 
power upon the lives of mankind ! 

— Advance Steps at Cincinnati, 1901. 



IRovember 12 

How many of our young men are drifting 
about from place to place, looking for the easy 
spot ; dissatisfied with this because the work is 
hard, and with that because the hours are long, 
and with the other place because the pay is 
small; unwilling to do their honest best because 
of some fancied grievance of work or pay; 
unwilling to do a stroke of work that they can 
live without doing, always waiting, like Mr. 
Micawber, for something to turn up, that shall 
furnish a snug berth and demand no equiv- 
alent of muscle or skill or brain ! That is the 
gambler's spirit, whether you ever risked a 
cent or handled a cue in your life. 

— Danger Signals. 



1 



YBAR-BOOK 129 

•Rovember 13 

You cannot wash your heart as you can your 
pocket-handkerchief. To keep your heart 
clean is comparatively easy ; to cleanse it when 
once it is befouled, is an Augean task. 

—Looking Out on Life. 



flovember 14 

To know God! Ah! this is knowledge 
indeed. It brings wisdom beyond any univer- 
sity course, beyond anything that travel or 
genius can give; and it is within the reach of 
every poorest and least-gifted stay-at-home. 

To become acquainted with God! That 
means the best society. Emperors and nobles 
can have no such society as the humblest child 
of God, unless they, too, acquaint themselves 
with him. 

—Spiritual Acquaintance. 



flovember 15 

There is no better thermometer to the real 
spiritual life of a church than its young 
people's work. 

— Training the. Church of the Future. 



130 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

movemftet 16 

"Let the redeemed of the Lord say so/' is 
an exhortation of the Psalmist which was 
never more needed than to-day. A sure pre- 
cursor of a revival^ as some one has said, 
would be to find all the members of the church 
of one mind and in one place and all acknowl- 
edging their love and devotion to the Lord. 
This was the Pentecostal sign of the great 
revival in which the church began, and it 
would be no less indicative of an awakening 
that would arouse the world to the claims of 
Christ to-day. 

—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



Wovember 17 

For various reasons our churches have come 
to contain many silent partners, many names 
of those who do not serve. Social considera- 
tions, decline of early zeal, physical incapacity, 
have filled our church-rolls, and have not mul- 
tiplied our church-workers. I am not finding 
fault or indulging in a cheap fling at the lazi- 
ness of Christians. I am stating a fact. Some 
counteracting forces were needed. Here is 
one of them, a society whose ideal, like Wes- 
ley's is, "At it, and all at it, and always at it" ; 
a society that finds a task for the least as well 



YBAR'BOOK 131 

as the greatest, for the youngest and most dif- 
fident as well as for the few natural-born 
leaders. 

— The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



movembet 18 

A community is not divided against itself 
when some members cultivate the soil, and 
others work in the shop, and others go to buy- 
ing and selling, and still others become 
lawyers and doctors. Away with the mediae- 
val notion that all members of the church 
must necessarily be doing the same things at 
the same time and in the same way, if the 
unity of the church is to be preserved ! 

—What the Y. M. C. A. Has Done for 
THE Church. 



movembet 19 

I believe family life is the one great perva- 
sive influence, next to the religion of Christ, 
that keeps society sweet and politics compara- 
tively pure, and saves the nation from the 
degeneracy and corruption of Babylon and 
Egypt, Greece and Rome. 

— British and American Home Life. 



132 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

IRovembet 20 

The process of conversion may be a very 
gentle and simple one. The child may never 
know the exact moment of the turn in his 
pathway. But sometime the turn was made, 
sometime he made the choice; and, though 
there was no wrench of old habits, no upheaval 
of the old nature, no earthquake shock or tor- 
nado of passion, his whole future life, if he 
has indeed entered into the Kingdom, proves 
that there was a choice that placed him among 
the children of God. 

—Training the Church of the Future. 



IRovember 21 

The church or the charity which cannot 
live without grab-bags and guess-cakes had a 
thousand times better die. 

—Danger Signals. 



November 22 

It would be amusing, were it not so sad, to 
observe the ingenuity of the devil in offering 
our young people a ride on one of the little 
silver horses of chance. Here is that noble 
institution, the church fair. Of course it is all 
right, the boy or girl thinks, to attend a church 



YBAR^BOOK 133 

fair, and here in the fair is a guess-cake, or a 
grab-bag, or Pandora's box, or Fortune's well, 
or some chance to invest a dime or a quarter, 
with the chance of drawing an unknown prize. 
If there is anything to be reprobated or 
despised, it is just this species of gambHng. 

— Danger Signals. 



movembet 23 

Within the banks of faith and joy, of con- 
stant service and unselfish devotion, our lives 
may move with ever-increasing momentum 
and power until at last the ocean of our desires 
is reached, and we lose the stream of our life 
only to find it in the ocean of God. 

— The Rhine of Life. 



movember 24 

God has permitted evil in the world, but he 
has compelled it for the most part to hide its 
head. It goes abroad in the night, not in the 
daytime. It recruits its forces in dark cellars. 
It has its hiding-place in the outlaw's cave, 
where the light of the sun never pierces, and, 
if we cannot extirpate it, we should not parade 
it in the brightness of day. One great demor- 
alizer of our times is this parade of evil. 

— Danger Signals. 



134 THE FRANCIS U. CLARK 

tiovcmbcv 25 

The great blessings of the past year have 
been spiritual blessings, not the turkeys, or the 
apples, or the dollars that have fallen to ouf 
lot; and these gifts should be repaid in kind, 
passed on as they are received. 

—•Practical Thanksliving for Endeavorers. 



November 26 

Our neighbor, too, has his place m every 
true Thanksgiving Day. If we gorge our- 
selves with the good things God has given us, 
with never a thought of the friendless and the 
poor, we take our place with the swine at the 
trough, and deserve about as little considera- 
tion of God or man. 

—A Programme for Thanksgiving Day. 



tiovcmbct 27 

In every life there are times of strain and 
stress and up-stream tug. The current is 
against us. Circumstances are adverse. Pas- 
sions are impetuous. The stream of events, 
which we cannot control, is setting down- 
stream, while we are bound up. All we can do 
for a time is to struggle. We seem to make no 



YBAR-BOOK 135 

headway. At the end of the day, the week, 
the year, we seem to be very near our starting- 
point. Nevertheless, our prow is always point- 
ing up-stream, and that is much. We have not 
weakly yielded to circumstances, and that is 
more. We have not allowed ourselves to drift, 
and that in a young man's life is almost 
everything. 

Courage! There is smoother water ahead! 
At any rate, it is quite as necessary to go up 
as down, if it is slower work. Our progress is 
not measured by the distance we gain, but by 
the struggle. 

God knows the power of the current against 
us, as the engineer knows the force of the 
Rhine. He expects of us what we can do, and 
nothing more. 

—The Rhine of Life. 



*lovembet 28 

The earth is a big, iron-ribbed craft sailing 
through space at an incredible rate. We are 
passengers all. But the Captain is on the 
bridge. He is responsible. His sleepless eye 
in fog and storm guides our course. 

We have but our daily duty and daily play 
to do, just as well as we can, trusting to him 



136 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

the future, which we cannot foresee or alter. 
There is no other divine sedative like this, no 
other anti-worry medicine. 

—A Midwinter Hurricane in Mid-Ocean. 



movembet 29 

As I write these words, I am speeding 
toward Liverpool to take the steamer for 
home. You who have not been absent for 
nine months, journeying in many lands, 
among Chinese Boxers, on Siberian rivers, 
stuck on mud-banks, waiting days in the wil- 
derness with a burned bridge between you and 
all you love best, cannot realize what that 
word "home'' means. 

There is another sentiment, homely and 
uninspired, but none the less true, to which we 
can also subscribe: — 



''East, west, 
Hame's best.'^ 



-On Seas and Shores. 



November 30 

It is my great desire to glorify the routine 
of my life, to ennoble all its homely, every- 
day, unexciting tasks. I know of one way to 
do this, and only one, I must begin the day 



YBAR^BOOK 137 

aright. The Quiet Hour with God is the 
great ennobler of little duties. It gilds with 
its own radiance every humdrum task. Then 
I want to carry the spirit of the Quiet Hour 
into every smallest action of the day. I want 
to take it to the breakfast-table with me, and 
down the hill to the railway station, and into 
the city on the cars, and up the elevator to my 
office, and to have the abiding Presence there 
all the day. In this spirit I wish to write every 
letter, and see every caller, and answer every 
request, and endure every unforeseen inter- 
ruption which often breaks the day into seem- 
ingly useless fragments. I invite you, dear 
friends, to join me in this effort to irradiate 
humdrum, commonplace, every-day tasks with 
light from the other world. 

— At the Old Desk Again. 



December l 

We may sometimes have some questioning 
as to whether He will give us in response to 
our prayers wealth, or health, or influence, or 
power ; for all these may be asked for selfishly, 
and may harm rather than bless us. 

But, when we ask for spiritual gifts, and 
ask these, not for ourselves alone, but for 
young people the world around, can we doubt 



138 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

that His promise is ours, "If ye then, being 
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
children, how much more shall your heavenly 
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
Him?" 

— December the First^ Nineteen Hundred 
AND Three. 



2)ecem6et 2 

All honor to the men who struggle on, and 
drag their obstacles with them, not whining 
or croaking or demanding sympathy, but just 
struggling on and up in spite of everything. 
Verily they will have their reward. 

—The Rhine of Life. 



December 3 

The society was not made for its commit- 
tees, but the committees are made for the soci- 
ety, that it might be a working organization, 
—The Christian Endeavor Manual. 



December 4 

I look upon it as one of the first duties of a 
child of God to tell the glad news to others. 
^'Let the redeemed of the Lord say so." 

— A New Zealand Address. 



YBAR-BOOK 139 

December 5 

Our lives are very much as are our early 
dreams of life. If we start with noble ideals, 
the lives will pretty certainly be noble. If the 
ideals are degraded, the lives will pretty 
certainly be degraded. 

— Danger Signals. 



December 6 

I believe in God's leading, not because I 
have read about it in history, and heard others 
talk about it; not simply because I believe the 
Bible, but because I have often experienced it 
in my own life. He has guarded me from 
untold evil when, as I afterward found, I was 
upon its brink. 

He has kept me from doing the thing which 
I most wanted to do, because my way, as I 
now see, would have been disastrous. He has 
sent sickness and suffering when, as I now see, 
they were much better for me than health and 
happiness would have been. 

— God's Leading in Our Lives. 



December 7 
Dirt and trash go together in literature as 
well as in the scavenger's cart. The dirty is 
always trashy; the trashy is usually dirty. 

— Danger Signals. 



140 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

December 8 

One word that our Lord Jesus came to earth 
especially to emphasize is the word ''Father." 
As applied to God it was almost unknown 
before he came. Heathen religions were igno- 
rant of it, and even the Old Testament knows 
comparatively little of God as the Father of 
his people. He is the Shepherd, the Shield, 
the Sun, the High Tower, the Rock of our 
defence ; and a hundred other names are his 
in the psalms and the prophets ; but it was for 
Christ to reveal and emphasize the new and 
more blessed name, ''Our Father." 

On a railway journey I have just read 
through the Gospel of Matthew with this in 
view, to find how often Christ uses the word 
"Father" when speaking of God or to him, and 
I find that no less than thirty-six times in this 
one Gospel is this word used. 

—Children of God. 



December 9 

There is a danger in routine and humdrum 

as well as a blessing; and if, never looking up 

and out, we look into the ever-deepening rut, 

it will become a ditch, and our last ditch at 

that. 

—At the Old Desk Again. 



YBAR'BOOK 141 

2)eceml)er 10 

Better let the mind be empty than fill it with 
seeds which will inevitably produce an abun- 
dant crop of disease and death. 

—Danger Signals. 

2)ecembet U 

How lavishly God bestows his gifts! An 

artist spends half a year in painting a single 

picture of the snow, three feet wide; and then 

it is often a poor, unreal, imperfect thing. 

God every morning covers all Scandinavia 

with a new snow picture, and on this gigantic 

canvas every minutest detail of leaf and twig 

and tender tree stem is as perfect as if it was 

the only one he had ever painted. During the 

day perhaps the sun wipes out the picture, but 

the next morning he paints it all over again, 

and repeats the picture perhaps a hundred 

times during the winter. 

—In Snowland. 

December 12 

You can make it your business to live and 
proclaim the gospel while you serve behind a 
counter, or on a railway-train, or on a police- 
man's beat, "to pay expenses." 

— Told at Midnight in a Sleeping-Car. 



142 THU FRANCIS B. CLARK 

2)ecemt>et 13 

Many revivals can be traced, so far as 
human agency goes, directly to the prayer of 
some individual Christian, often a humble, 
inconspicuous Christian; sometimes to the 
prayer of a helpless invalid, who could never 
attend a prayer-meeting. 

What God has done, God will do, if we are 
ready for him to work through us. Why may 
not the coming revival begin in your heart? 
—A Call to Prayer for a Great Awakening. 



December 14 

Smut always crocks. Pitch always sticks. 
When soot is in the air, it is just as likely to 
fall on your head as anywhere else; and the 
smut of these dirty periodicals is actually in 
the air to-day. Every age has its peculiar 
dangers, and needs its peculiar, trumpet-toned 
warnings. One note of alarm which we need 
to sound to-day, in this latter part of the nine- 
teenth century, is, "Beware of vile books." 

—Danger Signals. 



2)ecembet 15 
What we give is a test of what we are. 

—"This Grace Also." 



YBAR'BOOK 143 

December 16 

^'Holiday" is very near akin to "holy day." 
Its root and origin are the same. While we 
are enjoying the holidays, let us not forget the 
holy days that are coming, or fail to make the 
most of them when they come. 

— Holidays and Holy Days. 



December 17 

If we remember our Latin derivations 
aright, "inculcate" means to grind in as with 
the heel, or literally "to heel in." "Educate" 
means to draw out. We need to educate the 
religious nature of the child as well as to 
inculcate the truth. This "drawing out" is 
more difficult than the "heeling in," but it is 
also more important. 

—The Training of Young Christians. 



December 18 

One day of crisis in my life, as so many 
others could say if they were relating their 
own story, was the day when I made up my 
mind, not only to be Christ's, but to let others 
know it. I remember well the little old- 
fashioned chapel of the country church, with 
its hard, straight-backed seats. I can remem- 



144 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

ber now where I sat, though I was then 
scarcely thirteen years of age; and, if I 
should tell you the whole truth, I should have 
to confess that it was more than thirty years 
ago. I had no remarkable experience, no 
blinding light from heaven, no impulse that I 
could not resist if I had chosen to resist it; 
but I did know my duty, and I determined, as 
a million boys have done before and since, to 
try to do it; and, when the minister that had 
charge of that prayer-meeting, who was also 
my dear father, asked the question that so 
many ministers before and since have asked, 
whether there were any who were willing to 
acknowledge their love for Christ for the first 
time, I stood up, quite alone, if I remember 
rightly. I do not think I said a word, but that 
one act before all the people who were present 
committed me to the side of Christ. 

—Matters of Personal Experience. 



December 19 

Meditation shows us that God is the source 
of supply for all our needs. "My soul thirst- 
eth for God, for the living God.'' 

Prayer digs a channel straight and true to 
this source of supply. "Ask, and ye shall 



receive." 



YBAR-BOOK 145 

Devotional reading of the word of God 
keeps the channel from becoming clogged 
with selfishness and self-seeking. It keeps us 
from simply teasing God for material bless- 
ings and nothing more. "My God shall 
supply all your need." 

— The Fertile Field of the Desert. 



December 20 

Almost all phrases that have become stereo- 
typed by use, and even savor of cant because 
of vain repetition, have a deep reason for 
being. * * * Whenever you meet a word 
or phrase discarded or allowed to fall into 
"innocuous desuetude'' because it is supposed 
to be meaningless cant, it is well to examine it 
carefully. It is probably an expressive gem 
of the first water. It is more than likely to be 
a diamond dulled by familiarity and thought- 
less use. 

— The Wildcat's Christmas Lesson. 



December 21 

It IS as natural for the young Christian to 
talk about his Saviour as for him to talk about 
his father, whom he loves next to his Sav- 
iour; and all training which intentionally 



146 THB FRANCIS B. CLARK 

or unintentionally leads him to shut up the 
love for either in his heart, without giving 
utterance to it, is false and pernicious. 
Instruction — wise, patient, careful instruc- 
tion — is most important for the growth of 
the young soul in the way of eternal life; 
but constant effort on his own part to make 
known the love of Jesus is no less important. 
There can be no beautiful, symmetrical 
unfolding of the new life without constant 
acknowledgment of Him who is that life. 

— Young People's Prayer-Meetings. 



December 22 

The other day, in a Christian Endeavor 
meeting in Paris, the testimony that touched 
my heart the most was that of a young lady, 
who told us how, when she first spoke for her 
Master in an Endeavor meeting, hesitating 
and trembling and afraid of her own voice, as 
she sat down, a little girl by her side, who 
knew of her bashfulness, reached over and 
took her hand with a comforting squeeze. 
She said no word, but that gesture told of the 
little girl's love and sympathy. It was one of 
the steps that unconsciously led two souls up 
the table-lands and into the sunlight of God's 
presence. 



YBAR-BOOK 147 

But what IS our whole system of Christian 
Endeavor if it is not a series of unconscious 
steps up invisible mountains? The prayer- 
meetings, in a sense, are routine affairs; ful- 
filling the pledge, in our discouraged 
moments, may seem like a perfunctory obli- 
gation; the committees, like the lifeless parts 
of a machine; but one great object of the 
Society is to form habits of well-doing, habits 
of confession, of devotion, of service. 

— Concerning Moral Mountain-Climbing. 



December 23 

Our pledge in its essence is not only the 
covenant of the Bible; it is the pledge of the 
Covenanters of Scotland, of the Pilgrims of 
New England, of the Huguenots of France, 
of the Waldenses, of the Lollards. Our 
pledge is the covenant of every Christian 
church adapted to young people of all 
churches. It is the spoken or unspoken vow 
of every soul that accepts Christ as Saviour. 
In its essence it is essential to the beginning 
of the Christian life. 

Surely, then. Christian Endeavorers are 
right in putting such emphasis on their cov- 
enant pledge. It is, indeed, our Magna 
Charta. It has been approved by God, speak- 



148 THE FRANCIS B. CLARK 

ing through the Bible and through history. 
It is necessary because it is reasonable and 
scriptural. 

— Christian Endeavor in the New Testament. 



December 24 

Keep Christmas Day with your heart, and 
not only with the fir-tree and the candle. Let 
us hang the garlands within, and not all in 
the windows that face upon the street. 

— Christmas Without Plum-Pudding. 



December 25 

The Christmas idea is the gift idea. We 
cannot separate the two ideas if we would, and 
we would not if we could. The very mention 
of the word "Christmas" reminds us of the 
"unspeakable gift," and every poor little pres- 
ent that we make to one another reminds us 
again of Him who was given to us in Beth- 
lehem's manger on Christmas mom. 

—A Christmas Letter. 



December 26 

A great deal more depends upon what we 
deem dull, commonplace, and prosaic than 
upon the occasional lofty mountains of 



YBAR-BOOK 149 

achievement. In fact, I doubt whether in the 
moral world there are any startHng Alpine 
heights to be climbed in a single journey. 

Our daily ascent is more like our journey 
across the Nebraska prairies and the Colorado 
plains from the Missouri River to the Rocky 
Mountains. We are going uphill all the way, 
but so gradually that we do not know it until 
at last we stand five thousand feet above the 
sea, under the very shadow of Pike's Peak 
itself. 

So every duty done, every act of kindness 
rendered, takes us one step up the hill, an 
inappreciable step, perhaps; a monotonous, 
weary sort of a step oftentimes, but yet a step 
that leads to real heights of moral grandeur, 
— Concerning Moral Mountain-Climbing. 



December 27 

Teach the children at home, from the pul- 
pit, and in the Sunday-school, that, if they 
can go to but one service, the preaching-serv- 
ice, where God is worshipped in the great 
congregation, is the place for them ; and do 
everything, by making the church interesting 
and attractive to them, to lead them to feel 
that it is their service. 

— Young People's Prayer-Meetings. 



I50 THE PRANCIS B. CLARK 

December 28 

But in some way, dear friends, shall we not 
so pray and labor that the angels' song, as the 
months and years pass on, may mean more 
than it does now to thousands of our associate 
members, ''Glory to God in the highest, on 
earth peace, good will to men"? God grant 
it! 

— Ways and Means. 



Frequent confession of Christ is not only a 
bulwark against worldliness and thoughtless- 
ness, but a positive means of growth in grace. 

The ability and willingness to express one's 
convictions are almost as vital to the Chris- 
tian life as the possession of convictions. In 
fact, one can scarcely be said to have mastered 
that which he cannot or will not tell to 
another. 

— Training Young Converts. 



December 29 

You and I probably cannot become rich 
next year, however hard we work. We can- 
not become famous, even if we should sell our- 
selves body and soul to fame; but we may 



Y BAR-BO OK 151 

become God-like. There is absolutely no 
barrier in the way to this. The walls of a 
sick-room, the barbed-wire fence of our daily 
routine tasks, which seem so hard to overstep, 
the constraints of uncongenial associates, the 
bars of a prison, even — none of these can keep 
us from God or from becoming God-like. 
— Some Certain Possibilities for Next Year. 



5)ecembet 30 

I believe most heartily in New Year's reso- 
lutions; yes, in New Year's pledges. It is no 
real objection that they sometimes get frayed 
at the edge, cracked, or even broken. To say 
that we do not always live up to our best 
resolves is simply saying that we live in an 
imperfect world, and that we have ^^evil hearts 
of unbelief" ; but we shall certainly live nearer 
to the standard of these resolutions than if we 

never made them. 

—A Familiar Letter. 



December 31 

This is the last day of the year. We must 
leave it all behind us very soon. Let us leave 
other things behind us as well as the old yean 



152 THB PRANCIS E. CLARK 

AH hopelessness, all old ruts that are not good 
routes, all indifference to the best kind of 
Christian Endeavor work. 

— From the Steamer's Deck. 



My good-by message to Christian Endeav- 
orers is, Pray more; love more; give more; do 

more; be more. 

— A Familiar Letter. 



No, not farewell; that is not the best Chris- 
tian word, but good-by, or, in other words, 
"God be with you,'* till we meet again. 

—A Familiar Letter. 



Some Pop\ilaLr Books 

Daily Message for Christian Endeavorers, A. 

By MRS. FRANCIS E.^^CLARK. Introduction by Dr. CLARK. 

373 PPm cloth, gilt top, illuminated cover-design, 12 full-page illustrations. 

Boxed, $1.00. 

This is a book for the Quiet Hour, the Prayer Meeting, and the Birthday. 
It is three books in one. Tnere is a page for every day in the year, filled with 
the choicest thoughts of the best writers. The collection is the result of years 
of careful reading. A new feature in books of this kind is the place for birth- 
day entries, space being given under every day in the year. 

Morning Watch, The. 

A Book for the Quiet Hour. By BELLE M. BRAIN. 
414 pp., cloth, illustrated, gilt top. Boxed, $1.00. 
366 gems, each a page in length, from the heart and brain and hand of the 
saints of God in all ages. A book of daily readings, giving a month with an 
author. This is one of the most interesting books of daily readings that has 
ever been compiled, as the authors speak from the hours of their richest and 
deepest experience. 

Lincoln at Work. 

By WILLIAM O. STODDARD. 
Illustrations by SEARS GALLAGHER. Cloth, $i. 00. 
In a series of fascinating and most graphic chapters, Colonel Stoddard 
pictures the gaunt, ungainly politician, his rapid and marvellous rise to power, 
and that strange life in the White House, so appealing in its pathos, its quaint 
humor, and the profound tragedy that lay underneath it all. Many anecdotes 
are told, throwing a flood of light upon the times and the man. 

From Life to Life. 

By rev. J. WILBUR CHAPMAN, D.D. 

Illuminated cover-design, cloth, $1.00. 
Those who have ever heard Dr. Chapman speak have been impressed with 
the large number of anecdotes, incidents, stories, poems, etc., he has used in 
illustrating his talks. This illustrative material, gathered from many sources 
and touchmg many topics, will prove of great interest and value for personal 
reading, as well as an aid m reaching others. 

How to Work — How to Play — How to Study. 

By AMOS R. WELLS. 

Three books uniformly bound in cloth ; 75 cents each. 

The three volumes, $2.00. 

Three books on very practical subjects. This is a working nation, and yet 
few among its millions of workers know how to work to the best advantage. 
"Puttering," "Putting Off," ''Taking Hints," "'Can' Conquers" "The 
Bulldog Grip," are specimen titles of the thirty-one chapters in "How to 
Work." 

In " How to Play," the very first chapter is entitled " The Duty of Play- 
ing," which shows tnat the author believes in recreation. Practical chapters 
are given upon such themes as how to keep games fresh, inventing games, 
overdoing it, true recreation, etc. 

In " How to Study," such topics as concentration of mind, night study, 
cramming, memory training, care of the body, are considered. Many illustra- 
tions and anecdotes are given, and the author makes full use of his experience 
as a teacher and college professor. 

UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 
BOSTON AND CHICAGO 



TEMPLE SERIES 




By Rev. Maltbie D. 



The Best Authors. 

Copyrighted Books. 
Superbly Bound in Cloth. 
Illustrated. 

THE books are beau- 
tifully bound, and 
stamped with original 
cover designs in colors 
and gold. Each volume 
contains an appropriate 
half-tone frontispiece. 
Too much cannot be said 
in praise of them. For 
gift purposes they cannot 
be excelled. 4^x7^ 
inches. Dainty cloth 
bindings. Illustrated. 

Price, 35 cents each. 

Babcock, D.D. Talks to young 



The Four G's are Grace, 
E. Clark, D.D. 



THE THREE WHYS. 

Christians. 
THE FOUR G'S. By Rev. Theo. L. Cuyler, D.D. 

Grit, Growth, and Gratitude. 
OLD LANTERNS FOR PRESENT PATHS. By Rev. F. 

Helpful thoughts from Jeremiah for young people. 
JUST TO HELP. (Poems.) By Amos R. Wells. Poems appropriate to the 

title, written — just to help. 
GOLDEN COUNSELS. By D wight L. Moody. Practical subjects forcefully 

presented. 
WELL BUILT. By Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. Plain talks to young 

people. 
HELPS UPWARD. By Rev. Wayland Hoyt, D.D. Apt illustrations of great 

themes. 
A FENCE OF TRUST. By Mary F. Butts. Poems and Sonnets. 
PLUCK AND PURPOSE. By William M. Thayer. Success, and how to obtain 

it. 
LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. By Amos R. Wells. Heart-to-heart talks. 
WISE LIVING. By Rev. George C. Lorimer, D.D. The gaining and wise 

use of money. 
THE INDWELLING GOD. By Rev. Charles A. Dickinson, D.D. The power 

and purpose of a life of faith. 
TACT. By Kate Sanborn. Racy essays on society^s virtues and foibles. 
YOUTH AND AGE. By Rev. James Stalker, D.D. A suggestive treatment of 

Ecclesiastes 12. 
SUNSHINE. (Poems). By Mary D. Brine. Poems of cheer and encourage- 
ment. 
MAKING THE MOST OF ONE'S SELF. By Rev. A. S. Gumbart, D.D. 

Practical talks to young men. 
ANSWERED ! By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D., Rev. R. A. Torrey, D.D.. 

Rev. C. H. Yatman, Rev. Edgar E. Davidson, Thomas E. Murphy, and 

Rev. A. C. Dixon, D.D. Remarkable instances of answered prayer. 

UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 
BOSTON AND CHICAGO 



QUIET HOUR BOOKS 

CHAMBERS OF THE SOUL. By Rev. Cornelius Woelfkin, D.D. Cloth, 35 
cents. The Quiet Hour Talks given by Dr. Woelfkin at the Cincinnati 
Christian Endeavor Convention, and which were enjoyed by so many 
thousands at that time. 

DAY BY DAY. By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. Cloth, 35 cents. Thirty 
*' meditations for the morning watch " — one for each day of the month. 

DEEPER YET. By Rev. Clarence E. Eberman. Dainty cloth, 50 cents. A 
series of nearly thirty brief meditations, each based on some Scripture 
passage and excellently fitted for devotional use. 

GOLDEN ALPHABET, THE. By Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. Cloth, 25 cents. 
Thirty-one choice selections from the works of Master John Tauler. 

GREAT SECRET, THE. By Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. Dainty cloth bind- 
ing, 30 cents. The secret of Health, Beauty, Happiness, Friend-making, 
Common Sense, and Success are all explained in " The Great Secret." 

IMPROVEMENT OF PERFECTION, THE. By Rev. William E. Barton, 
D.D. Clothj 35 cents. This is meant to help young Christians to a higher 
hfe by showing what kind of perfection God expects, and how it is to be 
gained. 

INNER LIFE, THE. By Bishop John H.Vincent. D.D. Cloth, 35 cents ; paper, 
15 cents; two copies, 25 cents, " A study in Christian expenence." 

I PROMISE. By Rev. F. B. Meyer, B.A. Cloth, 35 cents. Its chapters deal 
with matters of the utmost importance to every Christian, whether he is 
an Endeavorer or not. 

KINGDOM WITHIN, THE. By Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. Cloth, 25 cents. 
31 choice selections from the " Imitation of Christ," by Thomas k Kempis. 

LIVING AND LOVING, By Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. Cloth, 25 cents. 31 
choice selections from the devotional works of Professor A. Tholuck. 

MAN WHO SAID HE WOULD, THE. By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman. Cloth, 35 
cents. A most excellent book, with four Biblical characters as the subjects. 

MY BEST FRIEND. By Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins. Cloth, 35 cents ; paper, 15 
cents ; two copies, 25 cents. The six meditations for the Quiet Hour given 
by Dr. Tomkins at the Cincinnati Christian Endeavor Convention, entitled 
" Confessing Christ," " Trusting Christ," '* Walking with Christ,"" Serv- 
ing Christ," " Nourished by Christ," ana " Christ in Me." 

PRESENCE OF GOD, THE. By Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. Cloth, 25 cents. 
31 choice selections from the devotional works of Bishop Jeremy Taylor. 

QUAINT THOUGHTS. By Belle M.'Brain. Cloth, 2^ cents. A delightful book 
made up from the writings of that famous old army chaplain, Thomas 
Fuller 

SECRET OF A HAPPY DAY, THE. By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. 
Cloth, 50 cents ; presentation edition, white cloth, gilt edge, 75 cents. The 
book is based upon the wonderful twenty-third psalm, which has brought 
joy and peace to so many sorrowing hearts. 

SURRENDERED LIFE, THE. By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. Cloth. 35 
cents : paper, 15 cents: two copies, 25 cents. The book sets forth the lite 
"hid with Christ in God." 

UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 
BOSTON AND CHICAGO 



Are These Books In Your CKrlstian ElndoAvor Library? 

OUR. WORKERS' LIBRARY 

i6 mo, cloth bindings, 35c. each, post-paid. 
All twelve volumes, $3.25, post-paid. 

THE OFFICERS* HAND-BOOK. 

By Amos R. Wells. A manual for the officers of young 
people's societies, together with chapters upon parHamentary 
law, business meetings, etc. 

FIFTY MISSIONARY PROGRAMMES. 
By Belle M. Brain. Valuable suggestions upon ideal mis- 
sionary meetings, together with fifty entirely different pro- 
grammes for missionary meetings. 

THE MISSIONARY MANUAL. 
By Amos R. Wells. The most complete handbook of 
methods for missionary work in young people's societies ever 
published. 

FUEL FOR MISSIONARY FIRES. 
By Belle M. Brain. 115 pages of practical plans for mis- 
sionary committees. 

PRAYER-MEETING METHODS. 
By Amos R. Wells. Contains the most comprehensive col- 
lection of prayer-meeting plans ever made. 

SOCIAL EVENINGS. 
By Amos R. Wells. The most widely used collection of 
games and social entertainments ever made. 

SOCIAL TO SAVE. 
By Amos R. Wells. A companion volume to " Social Eve- 
nings." A mine of enjoyment for the society and home circle. 

OUR UNIONS. 
By Amos R. Wells. Wholly devoted to Christian Endeavor 
unions of all kinds, their officers, work, and conventions. 

WEAPONS FOR TEMPERANCE WARFARE. 
By Belle M. Brain. Full of ammunition for temperance 
meetings. Hundreds of facts, illustrations, and suggestions. 

NEXT STEPS. 
By Rev. W. F. McCauley. A book for every Christian En- 
deavor worker. It is a storehouse of suggestions. 

CITIZENS IN TRAINING. 
By Amos R. Wells. A complete manual of Christian citizen- 
ship. Written for those that desire to make their country better. 

EIGHTY PLEASANT EVENINGS. 
A book of social entertainments intended for young people's 
societies, church workers, temperance unions, and individuals. 

UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOK 
BOSTON AND CHICAGO 



;EP 22 1904 



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